Air pollution costs the Nordic countries tens of billions of kroner every single year. "It has a negative impact on human health and leads to higher mortality and greater inequality in the distribution of welfare. In order to regulate air pollution effectively, we have to find out which chemical substances are the most harmful and which population groups are affected the most," says Jørgen Brandt, professor at the Department of Environmental Science at Aarhus University and project leader of the NordicWelfAir project.
Together, the 16 partners from five Nordic countries participating in the project will map out air pollution and its various components all the way down to a 1 km x 1 km resolution for all the Nordic countries. Project activities also include development of a common air pollution modelling framework which will, for the first time, make it possible to calculate air pollution levels in the Nordic countries from 1990 to the present with the same geographical resolution for all countries.
High costs and more disease
Although the air quality in the Nordic countries is relatively good compared with many other regions, the negative health effects of air pollution are significant. It can lead to respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease and cancer, as well as further complications for those already suffering from other illnesses.
"We have a problem with air pollution in the Nordic region. Our air may not be as bad as in Beijing, but it nonetheless poses a very serious health and socio-economic problem on a Nordic scale. We already know quite a bit about the consequences of air pollution exposure, and in Denmark alone there are close to 4 000 premature deaths related to air pollution each year. This is 20 times higher than the annual figures for traffic fatalities," Professor Brandt states.
