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Linking health impact and Post-environmental impact assessments: a case of municipal sewage treatment plant volatile organic compounds

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Abstract

Deficiencies remain in current health impact assessment (HIA) and environmental impact assessment (EIA) projects. To address the shortcomings in EIA theory, a case of odors from a municipal sewage treatment plant (MSTP) was examined and geographic factors were employed to associate the spatial diffusion of the pollutants with the population’s activities based on land-use attributes. After screening the MSTP priority control pollutants, odors, hydrogen sulfide, and ammonia were selected for this study. Then, the spatial parameters for the pollutant simulation were surveyed, including parameters concerning the meteorological analysis, environmental emission monitoring, and emission source analysis, and a prediction of the pollutant diffusion as imaged and identified. The types of human social activity and exposure patterns were sorted as land-use attributes. An integration of the spatial diffusion of the pollutants with the exposure profiles of the scenario population according to the land-use attributes was achieved using counterpart spatial coordination factors. In our study, the commonly applied method of HIA risk calculation was followed and then extended by the spatial techniques introduced. The results of the scenario HIA contours are presented here, making it easy to determine the acceptable levels of the MSTP odor pollutants on a geographic scale. This study examines a significant approach to associate HIA with post-EIA via spatial factors and addresses the deficiencies of HIA in EIA empirical applications.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are extremely grateful to the staff at the Department of Environment and Health for their health statistics technical guides. The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors. The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests.

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Funding

The research presented here was supported by Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology Project 2018YFC0213704.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Environmental Criteria and Risk Assessment & Department of Environment and Health, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing, 100012, People’s Republic of China

    Hongmei Wang & Zhanlu Lv

  2. Department of Technology Development, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing, 100012, People’s Republic of China

    Huifeng Wang

  3. Environmental Policy and Strategic Environmental Assessment Research Center, Chinese research academy of environmental sciences, Beijing, 100012, People’s Republic of China

    Ci Zhao, Xiang Huang & Xiaoyu Liu

Authors
  1. Hongmei Wang
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  2. Huifeng Wang
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  3. Ci Zhao
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  4. Zhanlu Lv
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  5. Xiang Huang
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  6. Xiaoyu Liu
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Contributions

The authors’ responsibilities were as follows—Hongmei Wang is the PI of the parent project and obtained funding and supervised all scientific aspects of the work; Huifeng Wang, Ci zhao, Xiang Huang, and Zhanlu Lv formulated the research questions and designed the study and mediation analysis; Xiaoyu liu designed data protocols and collected data; Xiang Huang provided essential materials; Ci zhao handled all statistical programing and analysis; Zhanlu Lv interpreted results; Hongmei Wang wrote the paper; Hongmei Wang had primary responsibility for final content. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Hongmei Wang.

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Highlights

An approach integrating health impact assessment (HIA) and environmental impact assessment (post-EIA) is developed.

A pollutant diffusion simulation is linked to a scenario population’s exposure parameters assigned to land-use attributes.

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Wang, H., Wang, H., Zhao, C. et al. Linking health impact and Post-environmental impact assessments: a case of municipal sewage treatment plant volatile organic compounds. Air Qual Atmos Health 13, 421–433 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11869-020-00805-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11869-020-00805-x

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