Centre for Forest Research, Department of Biological Sciences, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada.
Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, School of Public Health, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada.
Sci Rep. 2021 May 13;11(1):10196. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-89353-7.
Exposure to allergenic tree pollen is an increasing environmental health issue in urban areas. However, reliable, well-documented, peer-reviewed data on the allergenicity of pollen from common tree species in urban environments are lacking. Using the concept of 'riskscape', we present and discuss evidence on how different tree pollen allergenicity datasets shape the risk for pollen-allergy sufferers in five cities with different urban forests and population densities: Barcelona, Montreal, New York City, Paris, and Vancouver. We also evaluate how tree diversity can modify the allergenic risk of urban forests. We show that estimates of pollen exposure risk range from 1 to 74% for trees considered to be highly allergenic in the same city. This variation results from differences in the pollen allergenicity datasets, which become more pronounced when a city's canopy is dominated by only a few species and genera. In an increasingly urbanized world, diverse urban forests offer a potentially safer strategy aimed at diluting sources of allergenic pollen until better allergenicity data is developed. Our findings highlight an urgent need for a science-based approach to guide public health and urban forest planning.
过敏原树花粉暴露是城市环境中日益严重的健康问题。然而，有关城市环境中常见树种花粉致敏性的可靠、有充分记录、经过同行评审的数据却很缺乏。我们采用“风险景观”的概念，提出并讨论了不同的树花粉致敏性数据集如何在五个城市（巴塞罗那、蒙特利尔、纽约市、巴黎和温哥华）中塑造花粉过敏症患者的风险的证据，这五个城市具有不同的城市森林和人口密度。我们还评估了树木多样性如何改变城市森林的致敏风险。我们表明，在同一城市中被认为是高度致敏的树木，其花粉暴露风险的估计值范围从 1%到 74%。这种差异是由于花粉致敏性数据集的差异造成的，而当城市的树冠仅由少数几个物种和属主导时，这种差异变得更加明显。在日益城市化的世界中，多样化的城市森林提供了一种潜在的更安全策略，旨在稀释过敏原花粉的来源，直到开发出更好的致敏性数据。我们的研究结果强调了需要采取基于科学的方法来指导公共卫生和城市森林规划。
