Kenessary D, et al. Air Pollution in Kazakhstan and Its Health Risk Assessment. Annals of Global Health. 2019; 85(1): 133, 1–9. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/aogh.2535 ORIGINAL RESEARCH Air Pollution in Kazakhstan and Its Health Risk Assessment D. Kenessary*, A. Kenessary*, Z. Adilgireiuly*, N. Akzholova*, A. Erzhanova*, A. Dosmukhametov*, D. Syzdykov*, Abdul-Razak Masoud† and Timur Saliev‡ Background: Air pollution in Kazakhstan is caused by many factors and poses serious threats to public health. Ambient air in the cities of Kazakhstan is polluted due to mining and processing of mineral resources, oil and gas production, gasoline and diesel fuel motor vehicles, industrial enterprises. Objective: The study aim is to assess the air pollution degree in most significant settlements of Kazakhstan and define risk levels for the population health. Ambient air monitoring was conducted in 26 cities. Air pollution severity was assessed by the analysis results and processing of air samples taken at the stationary observation posts. Health risk assessment due to chemical factors was calculated according to the approved risk assessment methodology. Findings: There is high risk of acute adverse effects risk from suspended particles, oxides and dioxides of nitrogen and sulfur in almost all of the studied cities. The most unfavorable situation is in Ust-Kamenogorsk. Also, there is the adverse chronic effects risk caused by suspended particles exposure in majority of the studied cities. Extremely high chronic effects risk as a result of heavy metals exposure was detected in Ust-Kamenogorsk, Shymkent, Almaty, Taraz and Balkhash. Unacceptable carcinogenic risk levels have been determined for professional groups and the whole population with respect to cadmium in Shymkent, Almaty, Balkhash; arsenic in Shymkent, Almaty, Balkhash; lead in Taraz; chromium – in Shymkent, Aktobe, Almaty and Balkhash. Thus, the values of the hazard quotients and indices for acute and chronic exposure in most of the studied cities of Kazakhstan exceed the permissible level equal to 1.0. Conclusion: Due to the unacceptable risk levels in the cities it is strongly recommended to conduct a detailed study of the health status of the population depending on the air pollution. Introduction KAZHYDROMET—the regional state enterprise responsible Exposure of the populace to ambient air pollution has for monitoring and analyzing the environmental situation been considered as a significant contributor to the devel- in the Republic of Kazakhstan. opment of a range of disorders [2, 15]. In fact, polluted In fact, air pollution in Kazakhstan is caused by many air is still a substantial threat to people’s health around factors. First on the list is the recent growth of mining and the world, despite the introduction of new technologies in processing of mineral resources, such as lead, zinc, phos- industry, energy and transportation [3, 4, 10, 13]. phorus, and chromium productions. Mining produces A number of works demonstrated pollution of atmos- a huge volume of waste. 20 billion tons of this waste is pheric air as the primary environmental factor that causes accumulated and a third of them contaminate the air on a high level of health risk in urbanized areas [6–8, 14, 16]. a daily basis. Domestic mining enterprises use old, inef- Nowadays, the air basin of almost any settlement is polluted ficient purification systems, as a result of which tons of with hundreds of chemical substances, the level of which, harmful substances are released into the atmosphere. as a rule, exceeds the maximum permissible threshold, and The second cause of air pollution is flaring of gas during its combined effect is even more significant [1, 5, 11–12]. oil and gas production. This is accompanied by soot emis- Taking into account the impact of pollution on public sions. Instead of utilizing the gas, the producers found it health, this study aims to assess the air pollution level in cheaper to burn it out, thus contributing to the pollution all settlements of the Republic of Kazakhstan according to of the air with carbon dioxide. the information bulletins based on the data provided by Another main contributor to air pollution is gasoline and diesel fuel motor vehicles. The increased number of * “Kenesary Company” LLP, Almaty, KZ cars, particularly in the main cities of Kazakhstan, results † National Laboratory Astana, Nazarbayev University, Astana, KZ in a high level of air pollution by nitrogen dioxide, carbon ‡ B. Atchabarov Scientific Research Institute of Fundamental monoxide, and organic substances. Medicine, Almaty, KZ The next factor is the dispersion of emissions from Corresponding author: D. Syzdykov ([email protected]) industrial enterprises as the result of production processes Art. 133, page 2 of 9 Kenessary et al: Air Pollution in Kazakhstan during industrial products combustion. In fact, there is the Agency (US EPA) [9, 17]. The following reference values entire list of harmful substances causing the high level of were used for risk assessment (Table 1). air pollution in Kazakhstan. Pollutants dispersion in the air According to this methodology, non-carcinogenic risk basin over the territory of settlements significantly affects assessment was carried out based on the calculation of the atmospheric air quality of cities, suburbs and towns. hazard quotient (HQ), using the formula: All of the above-mentioned problems deteriorated, owing to issues with air ventilation in main cities, due to HQ= Cactual /RfC, the bad architecture planning or specifics of landscapes. Inadequate airing of the atmospheric space in settlements where C – actual concentration of the substance leads to pollutants accumulation in the surface atmosphere in the air; layer, and their concentrations remain at very high levels. RfC – reference concentration. As a consequence of these factors, the permissible level of air pollution is exceeded in 13 major cities of Kazakhstan If HQ is equal to or less than 1.0, the risk of being sub- (Ust-Kamenogorsk, Aktobe, Astana, Almaty, Petropavlovsk, jected to harmful effects is considered extremely low, and Atyrau, Balkhash, Shymkent, Temirtau, Zhezkazgan, Taraz, with an increase in the HQ quotient, the probability of Karaganda, Semey cities). adverse effects occurring increases, i.e. HQ > 1.0 is consid- ered as evidence of potential health risks. Materials and methods Monitoring of atmospheric air pollution was conducted Table 1: Referent values of pollutants in ambient air of in 26 settlements in the Republic of Kazakhstan, at 146 populated areas. observation posts to be specific, including 56 stationary posts. There are three programs of the atmospheric air Substances Referent values (mg/m3) quality observation: complete, incomplete and short. The Maximum Average complete air observation program is intended to receive single daily information about single and daily average concentra- tions. In this case, observations are performed daily by Ammonia 0.2 0.04 continuous registration using automatic devices or dis- Benz(a)pyrene – 0.1 mkg/100 m3 cretely at regular intervals. The measurements are carried Suspended particles (dust) 0.5 0.15 out at least four times a day with mandatory sampling at 1, 7, 13, 19 o’clock local time. The incomplete observation Suspended particles PM-10 0.3 0.06 program is carried out to obtain information about single Suspended particles PM-2.5 0.16 0.035 concentrations daily at 7, 13 and 19 o’clock of local time. Hydrogen fluoride 0.01 0.001 The short observation program is carried out in order to obtain information only about single concentrations Nitrogen dioxide 0.2 0.04 every day at 7 and 13 o’clock local time. Sulfur dioxide 0.5 0.05 The extent of air pollution was assessed by the results of analysis and processing of air samples taken at the obser- Copper 0.003 0.002 vation posts. Cadmium – 0.0003 The following indicators were monitored at the observa- Manganese 0.01 0.001 tion posts in order to reveal the extent of the air pollution: suspended particles (dust), suspended particles PM-2.5, Methane 46.7 10 suspended particles PM-10, sulfur dioxide, soluble sulfates, Arsenic 0.04 0.01 carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, oxide Ozone (ground level) 0.16 0.03 nitrogen, ozone (surface), hydrogen sulfide, phenol, hydro- gen fluoride, chlorine, hydrogen chloride, hydrocarbons, Nitrogen oxide 0.4 0.06 ammonia, sulfuric acid, formaldehyde, methane, inorganic Carbon monoxide 5.0 3.0 arsenic compounds, cadmium, lead, chromium, copper, benzene, benzapyrene, beryllium, manganese, cobalt, Hydrogen sulfide 0.008 – gamma background radiation, zinc. Lead 0.001 0.0003 Health risk assessment due to chemical factors, particu- Sulfates 0.003 0.002 larly from chemical substances contained in atmospheric air, was calculated according to the “Guidelines for the Phenol 0.01 0.003 public health risk assessment when exposed to chemi- Formaldehyde 0.05 0.01 cal substances that pollute the environment.” This is the Chlorine 0.1 0.03 manual for the population health risk assessment due to chemical substances exposure that pollutes the envi- Hydrogen chloride 0.2 0.1 ronment (P 2.1.10.1920-04), approved by the Chief State Hydrogen fluoride 0.02 0.005 Sanitary Doctor of the Russian Federation (05.03.2004). It is based on the risk assessment methodology previously Chromium – 0.0015 developed by the United States Environmental Protection Zinc – 0.05 Kenessary et al: Air Pollution in Kazakhstan Art. 133, page 3 of 9 Risk assessment of the non-carcinogenic effects develop- additional measures to reduce them, but their levels need ment from a combined exposure of chemical compounds periodic monitoring. was carried out on the basis of hazard index calculation The second range (ICR more 1 × 10–6, but less 1 × 10–4) (HI) for simultaneous intake of several substances in the corresponds to the maximum permissible risk, i.e. upper same way (inhalation). Hazard indices were calculated for limit of acceptable risk.