School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK.
Department of Environmental Sciences/Center of Excellence in Environmental Studies, King Abdulaziz University, PO Box 80203, Jeddah, 21589, Saudi Arabia.
Sci Rep. 2017 Apr 25;7(1):1152. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-01135-2.
Road traffic is a major source of urban air pollution responsible for substantial premature mortality. Until recently, attention has focussed primarily on exhaust emissions of particulate matter from traffic as a causal factor. From analysis of air quality measurement data from the UK and France, we demonstrate that road traffic exhaust has a far greater impact on concentrations of nitrogen dioxide than of PM. PM and carbonaceous particle concentrations have been declining appreciably since 2010/11 due to the use of diesel particle filters, but little change is seen in nitrogen dioxide over the period from 1995 to 2015. It is shown that the effect of NO from road traffic upon premature mortality was ten-fold greater than that of PM even before the widespread use of diesel particle filters, and is now considerably larger. The overwhelming contribution of diesel compared to gasoline-fuelled vehicles to emissions of both PM and NO emphasises the importance of further controls on emissions from diesels.
道路交通是城市空气污染的主要来源，导致大量过早死亡。直到最近，人们的注意力主要集中在交通排放的颗粒物对造成污染的因素上。从英国和法国的空气质量测量数据的分析中，我们证明了道路交通废气对二氧化氮浓度的影响远远大于对 PM 的影响。自 2010/11 年以来，由于使用了柴油颗粒过滤器，PM 和碳质颗粒的浓度明显下降，但从 1995 年到 2015 年，二氧化氮的浓度几乎没有变化。结果表明，即使在广泛使用柴油颗粒过滤器之前，道路交通产生的氮氧化物对过早死亡的影响也比 PM 大十倍，而现在则更大。与汽油燃料车辆相比，柴油车辆对 PM 和 NO 的排放的巨大贡献强调了进一步控制柴油排放的重要性。
