Old industrial cities are epicentres of technogenic pollution. From noxious emissions to excessive lighting, the health of their residents takes the brunt of a variety of factors. But are all cities bad and all dirty? We tell you about the main environmental threats to the health of city dwellers and how to protect against them.
A quarter of the world’s population drinks dirty water, but most city dwellers are safe
According to the UN, only 74% of the world’s population enjoys a safe drinking water supply, that is, one that is free from contamination, provided at home and available on an as-needed basis. The remaining 26% of the world’s population have to drink contaminated water because clean water sources are either not available or have limited access to them.
Thus, at least 2 billion people worldwide drink water contaminated with faecal matter, which unfortunately includes water from almost all surface sources (ponds, rivers, lakes) and many underground reservoirs (water from which comes to the surface through springs and springs).
Microbiological contamination of drinking water through faecal contamination is a key factor in the spread of diseases such as diarrhoea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid and polio. Diarrhoea alone causes 829,000 deaths a year due to drinking contaminated drinking water. Dirty water is a source of more than just “sanitary” diseases, however. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that poor water quality and unsanitary conditions cause up to 80% of diseases worldwide.
Rural populations are the hardest hit by polluted water. According to WHO statistics, 90% of all people living in rural areas of the world use polluted water for drinking and bathing. Firstly, some of the biggest water polluters are farms, where much of the fertilizer (manure) that covers the soil is washed away by precipitation and gets into the fresh water.
Freshwater is also polluted by industry, forestry, fisheries, transport, landfills and so on. As a result, hundreds of hazardous substances are dissolved in the water, including heavy metals and toxic compounds ranging from lead and mercury to arsenic.
Urban dwellers are the most protected from the problem of polluted water, as modern water treatment systems are in place in developed communities. The exception is the cities of the least developed countries (which include many states in Africa, Latin America and Asia): according to WHO, the situation there is such that clean water is not only absent in many houses, but also in 50% of medical institutions.
An example of a well organised water treatment system is Moscow. All the water for the Russian capital city is taken from surface sources — the Moscow River and reservoirs. Every day, the water treatment stations pump through 3 million cubic metres of water. All of it goes through numerous stages of purification, from all kinds of sand and membrane filters to UV disinfection and ozonation. Water quality is monitored by an automated monitoring system that conducts over 6,000 daily physico-chemical, bacteriological and hydrobiological analyses for 184 indicators.
It is not only Muscovites who are provided with safe water in Russia — according to Rosstat, more than 90% of Russian households are connected to the central water supply. According to the passport of the federal Clean Water Programme, 87.5 per cent of Russians were provided with quality drinking water in 2018. According to the programme’s targets, this proportion will rise to 90.8% by 2024.
According to Rospotrebnadzor, 14.6% of all water supply sources in the country — from water intakes to wells — do not meet safety requirements. The worst situation is in Dagestan, where 96,7% of water supply sources do not meet the sanitary standards, in Karachaevo-Cherkessia (66,1%) and Kalmykia (64,4%). The reasons, according to experts from the agency, are the lack of the status of sanitary protection zones at water supply sources and insufficient efficiency of treatment technologies applied at local water utilities.
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90% of people around the world breathe in hazardous substances every day
The UN recognises air pollution as one of the most serious environmental threats to human health. More than 90% of the world’s population breathes air with pollution levels that exceed WHO standards. The consequences of air pollution kill 8 million people each year, and it costs $1 trillion a year to treat illnesses caused by it. Yet a third of the world’s countries do not have regulations defining air quality standards.
WHO experts identify four main air pollutants: suspended matter, ozone (O3), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and sulphur dioxide (SO2). Suspended matter is small particulate matter, consisting mainly of soot, sulphates, ammonia, sodium chloride or mineral dust. They are present in the air in a suspended state (as vapour). Particles with a diameter of less than 10 microns enter the lungs and are deposited there, particles smaller than 2.5 microns enter the bloodstream. Exposure to suspended matter leads to cardiovascular, respiratory and cancerous diseases.
Ozone in the air near the Earth’s surface should not be confused with that which forms the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere. Ground-level ozone comes from industrial emissions and car exhaust; it is a major element of smog and causes respiratory problems, asthma and other lung diseases. Nitrogen and sulphur dioxides are products of various combustion processes, especially combustion of fossil fuels in municipal heating, electricity generation and internal combustion engines. They also cause lung disease.
The source of dangerous air pollution is not just industry, transport and landfill sites, but also everyday activities. The fact is that around 2.6 billion people worldwide cook and heat their homes by burning paraffin, coal or biomass (which includes, for example, firewood).
According to WHO, 4.2 million people die as a result of outdoor air pollution and another 3.8 million die as a result of residential air pollution. More than 90% of these deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. About 58% of premature deaths related to air pollution are caused by coronary heart disease and stroke, 18% each by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and acute lower respiratory tract infections, and 6% by lung cancer.
According to IQAir, a global platform that aggregates data from ground-based monitoring stations, Russia ranks 80th among the countries with the dirtiest air. In other words, our air is clean. Our indicators are at the level of many developed countries (France, Germany and the United States). IQ Air ranks Bangladesh as the country with the dirtiest air, with 15-fold excess of WHO standards. In India, the standard is 11 times higher, and in China, 6.5 times higher.
Not all countries have a national air quality monitoring system, so IQAir relies for the most part on readings from private stations deployed by commercial organisations and even individual enthusiasts.
An advanced air quality monitoring system has long been deployed in Moscow. It consists of 56 automatic stations that take continuous measurements. They monitor more than 20 air pollution parameters in real time. Since 2021 the Moscow monitoring system has started to extend to the Moscow region — new automatic stations have already appeared in 12 towns of the region.
According to the latest report on the state of the environment in Moscow, in 2021 average annual concentrations of the main atmospheric pollutants did not exceed the established standards.
The state of the air in the country as a whole can be judged from Roshydromet’s reports. According to the agency, 369 cases of high and 37 cases of extremely high air pollution were detected in Russia in 2021.
The federal project “Clean Air”, implemented as part of the national project “Ecology”, should significantly improve the situation with atmospheric pollution in the regions. The goal of this federal project is to reduce air pollution in 12 most problematic localities by 20% by 2024: Bratsk, Krasnoyarsk, Lipetsk, Magnitogorsk, Mednogorsk, Nizhny Tagil, Novokuznetsk, Norilsk, Omsk, Chelyabinsk, Cherepovets and Chita. For this purpose, emissions from 457 industrial facilities are to be reduced.
Noise is one of the main health hazards for city dwellers
Noise or acoustic pollution emerged in the 19th century during the era of industrialization and urbanization, when large industrial plants appeared en masse and railway networks developed. At the same time, the density of urban population grew rapidly, as the rural population flocked to work in the enterprises.
However it was only with the widespread use of the car, in the 1930s and 1940s, that the need for noise pollution regulation was first recognised. The legal framework began to emerge a couple of decades later. Noise maps of settlements with marking of the main sources of acoustic pollution — airfields, highways, industrial enterprises began to be made, also norms on permissible noise level in various premises and areas appeared: in residential houses and on adjacent territories, in educational and medical institutions, in public places and so on.
Today, the largest cities are characterised by noise levels of around 100 decibels. In Mumbai and London, for example, the average noise level in a day can reach 105 decibels, while in Tokyo and Chicago it is 95. By comparison, a person whispers at 25 decibels, a conversation reaches 40 decibels, a baby cries or an adult screams at 80, and alarm clocks and city traffic around 90 decibels. The ambulance siren sounds at 120 decibels, while the bursting of an inflatable balloon sounds at 154 decibels. Noise levels above 140 decibels cause physical pain.
According to WHO, noise pollution is one of the most dangerous environmental factors affecting somatic and mental health. The fact is that at sound levels above 50 decibels your breathing and pulse rate increase, above 60 your sleep is disturbed and at 70 your blood vessels shrink.
Regular noise exposure can lead to hearing loss, persistent headaches, cardiovascular and nervous system disorders — up to and including neurosis and depression. Children are at higher risk: nervous disorders acquired as a result of noise exposure can lead to delays in physical and intellectual development, reduced learning ability and reduced concentration.
According to the European Environment Agency, noise pollution in Europe causes 12,000 premature deaths and 48,000 new cases of coronary heart disease every year. Because of constant exposure to noise 22 million Europeans suffer from chronic stress, 6.5 million suffer from chronic sleeping disorders and 12.5 thousand school children have learning problems. At the same time, the annual economic damage of noise pollution in Europe amounts to up to 2% of the region’s GDP.
There are around 300 documents regulating noise levels in Russian law. For example, noise levels in residential buildings and adjacent areas should not exceed 55 decibels during the day and 45 at night, while, for example, in medical institutions the standard is stricter — 40 and 30 decibels respectively.
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Light pollution: a growing but as yet underestimated threat
Light pollution, or ‘light smog’, is the illumination of the night sky by artificial light sources. It is estimated that light pollution now covers 23% of the Earth’s surface, where 80% of the world’s population is concentrated. It damages human health by disrupting the biological clock and causes chronic fatigue, stress, depression, obesity and diseases such as cancer and diabetes.
An unfortunate trend has been the steady increase in the area of artificial light globally by around 2% per year since 2012. The reason for this has been the proliferation of LEDs — access to energy-efficient technology has made it possible to install significantly more light sources.
The negative impact of light pollution on human health costs $7 billion annually. This is a small figure on a global scale — but there has not yet been a full-scale international study either. Humankind has probably yet to assess the scale of the problem.
So far, the issue of light pollution has not been taken seriously at the level of national governments or intergovernmental organisations. And there seems to be no easy solution to this problem — after all, you can’t just turn off lights in cities.
However, activists from the International Dark Sky Association have formulated a set of principles to follow when designing lighting schemes to reduce the harm from light pollution: keep lighting levels to an absolute minimum, use the minimum required levels of light, use light sensors and timers to turn on lights only when needed, and use warmer colours — limiting shortwave blue-violet light, because it is more harmful.
City and national governments should heed this advice before artificial light becomes so pervasive that its damage cannot be ignored.
Cover photo: ertyo5 / iStock
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