Abt Associates, Boulder, Colorado, USA.
Policy Institute for Energy, Environment and the Economy, University of California, Davis, California, USA.
Environ Health Perspect. 2018 Apr 17;126(4):047007. doi: 10.1289/EHP2594.
The public health community readily recognizes flooding and wildfires as climate-related health hazards, but few studies quantify changes in risk of exposure, particularly for vulnerable children and older adults.
This study quantifies future populations potentially exposed to inland flooding and wildfire smoke under two climate scenarios, highlighting the populations in particularly vulnerable age groups (≤4 y old and ≥65 y old).
Spatially explicit projections of inland flooding and wildfire under two representative concentration pathways (RCP8.5 and RCP4.5) are integrated with static (2010) and dynamic (2050 and 2090) age-stratified projections of future contiguous U.S. populations at the county level.
In both 2050 and 2090, an additional one-third of the population will live in areas affected by larger and more frequent inland flooding under RCP8.5 than under RCP4.5. Approximately 15 million children and 25 million older adults could avoid this increased risk of flood exposure each year by 2090 under a moderate mitigation scenario (RCP4.5 compared with RCP8.5). We also find reduced exposure to wildfire smoke under the moderate mitigation scenario. Nearly 1 million young children and 1.7 million older adults would avoid exposure to wildfire smoke each year under RCP4.5 than under RCP8.5 by the end of the century.
By integrating climate-driven hazard and population projections, newly created county-level exposure maps identify locations of potential significant future public health risk. These potential exposure results can help inform actions to prevent and prepare for associated future adverse health outcomes, particularly for vulnerable children and older adults. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP2594.
公共卫生界普遍认识到洪水和野火是与气候相关的健康危害，但很少有研究量化风险暴露的变化，特别是对于脆弱的儿童和老年人。
本研究量化了在两种气候情景下内陆洪水和野火烟雾潜在暴露的未来人口，重点是年龄特别脆弱的人群（≤4 岁和≥65 岁）。
将内陆洪水和野火的空间明确预测与静态（2010 年）和动态（2050 年和 2090 年）的美国大陆未来人口年龄分层预测相结合，按县一级进行。
在 2050 年和 2090 年，与 RCP4.5 相比，RCP8.5 下将有三分之一的人口生活在受更大、更频繁的内陆洪水影响的地区。到 2090 年，在中度缓解情景下（与 RCP8.5 相比，RCP4.5），每年约有 1500 万儿童和 2500 万老年人可以避免这种洪水暴露风险的增加。我们还发现，在中度缓解情景下，野火烟雾的暴露减少。到本世纪末，与 RCP8.5 相比，RCP4.5 每年将有近 100 万幼儿和 170 万老年人避免接触野火烟雾。
通过整合气候驱动的危害和人口预测，新创建的县级暴露图确定了未来潜在重大公共卫生风险的地点。这些潜在的暴露结果可以帮助为预防和准备相关的未来不良健康结果提供信息，特别是对于脆弱的儿童和老年人。https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP2594.
