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Wildfire Smoke Effects on Health: Implementing an Air Quality Alert System for UCSD

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Wildfire Smoke Effects on Health: Implementing an Air Quality Alert System for UCSD Wildfire Smoke Effects on Health: Implementing an Air Quality Alert System for UCSD Melina Cunha June 2019 Acknowledgements This capstone project would not have been possible without the help of my Committee. I would like to thank Tarik Benmarhnia, my Committee Chair and faculty professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, for being an amazing mentor and guiding me through this entire process. His guidance in both the scientific basis of climate change and health as well as implementation of the alert system at UCSD has been instrumental to my success. I also want to thank Corey Gabriel for encouraging me to choose wildfires as my direction of study and helping me to brainstorm all of the different directions I could have gone with this project. I want to thank everyone in the Environment, Health, and Safety Emergency Management & Business Continuity Division at UCSD who were involved in the development and implementation of the alert system, including Dismas Abelman, Eric Delucien, and Matt Hussmann. Dismas was enthusiastic from the beginning and eager to do everything he could to help me complete this project. Eric developed the website that I created as a resource for students to get more information about wildfire smoke, air quality, and health. Matt was my initial contact with EH&S who helped me understand the function of Triton Alerts and the Emergency Division and connected me with Dismas. I also want to thank everyone else who discussed my capstone with me throughout the year and in the early days when I was considering other projects. Thank you also to my friends, family, and CSP cohort for supporting and inspiring me this past year. Authorship Melina Cunha Master of Advanced Studies in Climate Science and Policy Scripps Institution of Oceanography University of California San Diego [email protected] | https://www.linkedin.com/in/melinacunha/ ________________________________ Signature 2 Capstone AdvisoryCommittee Committee Chair Tarik Benmarhnia, PhD I Professorof Climate, Atmospheric Science & Physical Oceanography, and Family Medicine & Public Health Scripps Institution of Oceanography and UCSD Signafurr CommitteeMember Corey Gabriel, PhD, JD I MAS CSP Executive Director Scripps Institution of Oceanography Signature Committee Member Dismas Abelman I Emergency Manager UCSD Signature 3 Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................................................................... 2 CAPSTONE ADVISORY COMMITTEE ........................................................................................................................ 3 PROJECT MOTIVATION .......................................................................................................................................... 5 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ........................................................................................................................................... 7 BACKGROUND ....................................................................................................................................................... 9 WILDFIRES: CONTRIBUTING FACTORS AND CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS .................................................................................... 9 Temperature and Precipitation ............................................................................................................................ 9 Fuel Availability and Anthropogenic Impacts ..................................................................................................... 11 Winds ................................................................................................................................................................. 12 Modeling Wildfires ............................................................................................................................................. 12 Wildfire Smoke ................................................................................................................................................... 15 HEALTH IMPACTS OF WILDFIRE SMOKE ............................................................................................................................ 18 Respiratory Morbidity ........................................................................................................................................ 19 Cardiovascular Morbidity ................................................................................................................................... 19 Mortality ............................................................................................................................................................ 19 Birth Outcomes .................................................................................................................................................. 20 Other Health Effects ........................................................................................................................................... 20 Vulnerable Populations ...................................................................................................................................... 23 ASSESSMENT OF AVAILABLE AIR QUALITY ALERT SYSTEMS ................................................................................. 25 EPA AIRNOW ............................................................................................................................................................. 25 BAY AREA................................................................................................................................................................... 29 OREGON .................................................................................................................................................................... 30 CANADA ..................................................................................................................................................................... 31 SAN DIEGO ................................................................................................................................................................. 32 UCSD AIR QUALITY ALERT SYSTEM ....................................................................................................................... 34 EMAIL ........................................................................................................................................................................ 35 WEBSITE .................................................................................................................................................................... 36 DISSEMINATION AND FUTURE ............................................................................................................................. 39 CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................................................... 40 REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................................................... 41 APPENDIX ............................................................................................................................................................ 49 METHODS .................................................................................................................................................................. 49 Literature Review ............................................................................................................................................... 49 Databases Used .................................................................................................................................................. 49 FLOW CHART FOR ALERT MESSAGING .............................................................................................................................. 50 UCSD ALERT EMAILS ................................................................................................................................................... 51 WEBSITE .................................................................................................................................................................... 55 4 Project Motivation Wildfires in California have become a major issue, not only in terms of physical damage, but also in harmful health effects caused by wildfire smoke. During the last wildfire season, the Camp Fire in Butte County burned for weeks and prevailing winds blew that smoke all the way down to the Bay Area where air quality decreased to levels considered by the EPA to be ‘very unhealthy’ and even ‘hazardous’ in some areas (see Figure 1) (EPA AirNow). Schools were closed, games were cancelled, and at one time Northern California had the worst air quality in the world, above even China and India (Turkewitz and Richtel 2018). My own birthplace, Paradise, was almost completely burned down and my family in the Bay Area were among those who suffered from the horrible air quality caused by the smoke. Researchers have discovered many negative health effects of wildfire smoke inhalation, including respiratory morbidity leading to exacerbations of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), as well as cardiovascular morbidities and more (Liu et al. 2015). The pollutants in wildfires and their impacts vary depending on the composition and
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