• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Poor Hit By Most Smog, Says Study

Posted on: Monday, 25 July 2005, 15:01 CDT

The poorest householders in Christchurch are choking on the most polluted air in the city, according to new research.

The Canterbury University study, which maps air pollution against social deprivation, not only found a clear link between poverty and poor air, but some evidence that richer suburbs were producing more than their share of the airborne dirt.

Lead researcher Dr Jamie Pearce, director of Canterbury's GeoHealth Laboratory, said deprivation proved to be "a significant predictor of air pollution exposure". "We need to appreciate that it's not necessarily the people producing the pollution who are getting exposed to it."

The study found residents of richer suburbs had more woodburners and more cars than others -- although it did not determine if their burners or cars were dirtier or cleaner than average.

Pearce said the research showed people in the poorest communities were getting a double whammy -- they not only had worse health, for a variety of social and economic reasons, but were exposed to more air pollution.

A fellow researcher, atmospheric scientist Dr Peyman Zawar-Reza, said the distribution of Christchurch smog varied considerably from day to day.

However, this latest study found that poorer suburbs not only had more pollution on average but were more likely to be hit by extreme pollution events. The latter potentially had the greatest effect on health.

Christchurch smog was thought to hasten the death of about 70 people a year.

A map of average pollution across Christchurch shows the foulest air to be in the more densely populated inner city, generally easing the greater the distance from the centre. Those living on the Port Hills and at the seaside breathed the cleanest air.

Zawar-Reza said any pollution produced by hillside residents tended to drain down into the city.

The study did not consider how much time people spent in other parts of the city. However, Christchurch pollution was at its worst during winter evenings and early mornings when people tended to be at home.

Fellow GeoHealth researcher Dr Simon Kingham said similar findings of "environmental injustice" had been found in research round the world.

"People with more money are fortunate enough to live in less- polluted areas."

Christchurch has had a winter air pollution problem since at least the 1880s and has been systematically monitoring it since the 1950s.

The Canterbury study found levels of both particulates and carbon monoxide remained very high by world standards, with nearly 80 per cent of the particulates coming from open fires and dirty log burners.

Cars and industry contributed the remainder. Outside winter months the major source of pollution was from vehicle emissions.

Environment Canterbury (ECan) air chief Richard Budd said the study was a validation of the council's Clean Heat Project. "This reinforces why we have a 100 per cent assistance programme, because we don't believe these people have the wherewithal to change to healthier heating."

The $7.2m a year project offers full or partial subsidies to home owners to replace polluting open fires or log burners with cleaner home heating.

About 3000 have converted in the past two years, but more than 30,000 more need to clean up by 2013 if tough new national environmental standards are to be met.

Source: Press, The; Christchurch, New Zealand

More News in this Category