Indonesian peatlands have been drained for agricultural development for several decades. This development has made a major contribution to economic development. At the same time, peatland drainage is causing significant air pollution resulting from peatland fires. Peatland fires occur every year, even though their extent is much larger in dry (El Niño) years. We examine the health effects of long-term exposure to fine particles (PM2.5) from all types of peatland fires (including the burning of above and below ground biomass) in Sumatra and Kalimantan, where most peatland fires in Indonesia take place. We derive PM2.5 concentrations from satellite imagery calibrated and validated with Indonesian Government data on air pollution, and link increases in these concentrations to peatland fires, as observed in satellite imagery. Subsequently, we apply available epidemiological studies to relate PM2.5 exposure to a range of health outcomes. The model utilizes the age distribution and disease prevalence of the impacted population. We find that PM2.5 air pollution from peatland fires, causes, on average, around 33,100 adults and 2900 infants to die prematurely each year from air pollution. In addition, peatland fires cause on average around 4390 additional hospitalizations related to respiratory diseases, 635,000 severe cases of asthma in children, and 8.9 million lost workdays. The majority of these impacts occur in Sumatra because of its much higher population density compared to Kalimantan. A main source of uncertainty is in the Concentration Response Functions (CRFs) that we use, with different CRFs leading to annual premature adult mortality ranging from 19,900 to 64,800 deaths. Currently, the population of both regions is relatively young. With aging of the population over time, vulnerabilities to air pollution and health effects from peatland fires will increase. Peatland fire health impacts provide a further argument to combat fires in peatlands, and gradually transition to peatland management models that do not require drainage and are therefore not prone to fire risks.

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印度尼西亚泥炭地火灾对健康的影响

几十年来，印度尼西亚泥炭地一直被用于农业发展。这一发展为经济发展做出了重大贡献。与此同时，泥炭地排水造成泥炭地火灾造成的严重空气污染。泥炭地火灾每年都会发生，尽管在干旱（厄尔尼诺）年份其范围要大得多。我们研究了在印度尼西亚大部分泥炭地火灾发生的苏门答腊和加里曼丹，长期暴露于各种泥炭地火灾（包括地上和地下生物质的燃烧）产生的细颗粒物 (PM2.5) 对健康的影响。我们从使用印度尼西亚政府空气污染数据校准和验证的卫星图像中得出 PM2.5 浓度，并将这些浓度的增加与在卫星图像中观察到的泥炭地火灾联系起来。随后，我们应用现有的流行病学研究将 PM2.5 暴露与一系列健康结果联系起来。该模型利用了受影响人群的年龄分布和疾病流行率。我们发现，泥炭地火灾造成的 PM2.5 空气污染平均每年导致约 33,100 名成年人和 2900 名婴儿因空气污染而过早死亡。此外，泥炭地火灾平均导致约 4390 人因呼吸系统疾病住院，635,000 名儿童严重哮喘病例，以及 890 万工作日损失。这些影响大部分发生在苏门答腊，因为与加里曼丹相比，苏门答腊的人口密度要高得多。不确定性的主要来源是我们使用的浓度响应函数 (CRF)，不同的 CRF 导致每年 19,900 到 64,800 人死亡。目前，这两个地区的人口都比较年轻。随着人口老龄化，泥炭地火灾对空气污染和健康影响的脆弱性将增加。泥炭地火灾健康影响为防治泥炭地火灾提供了进一步的论据，并逐渐过渡到不需要排水因此不易发生火灾风险的泥炭地管理模式。