Estimating infiltration of quasi-ultrafine black carbon particles by an absorbance method: air quality in Pavla Stehlíková Abstract This diploma thesis focused on the estimating quasi-ultrafine particles amount in school gyms continue previous study researched air quality in schools. The size-segregated mass concentration of particulate matter was measured in three elementary school gyms in central part of Prague, on periphery of Prague and in a small settlement Černošice during twenty campaigns, from 2005 to 2009. The mass concentration of particulate matter were measured by 5-staged Sioutas impactor. For this thesis we have selected samples on filters with particle size <0,25µm. To evaluate carbonaceous particles amount we used reflectance. Reflectance was transformed into an absorption coefficient (m- 1 .10-5 ). The average levels of absorptions coeficients were higher outdoors (14,66 ± 8,93 m- 1 .10-5 ) than indoors (13,64 ± 8,08 m-1 .10-5 ). The correlations between absorption coeffitients outdoors and indoors were significant for all schools (Spearman's correlation coefficient at intervals 0,834-0,957, regression slope 0,759-1,007), suggesting a high outdoor-to-indoor penetration rate. The weak correlation between absorption coefficients and number of exercising pupils (correlation coefficient 0,059)...

This dissertation consists of three essays in the field of applied environmental economics. The first two essays study the effect of daily ambient temperature on police officer behavior. Police officers often exercise substantial discretion when making highly consequential decisions, which can lead to unfair and arbitrary law enforcement. In the first chapter, I exploit daily ambient temperature as a source of transitory, high-frequency shocks and examine how it affects an officer’s decision whether to discount a driver’s speeding penalty in Florida. I find that a 1-standard-deviation increase in temperature lowers the driver’s probability of receiving a lenient ticket by 2%. In addition, using traffic monitoring data and crash reports, I do not find evidence of decreased police effort or increased reckless driving on hot days. I show that the reduction in leniency is disproportionally borne by white drivers, who on average benefit more from officer leniency. In addition, I find that newly hired officers become less affected by temperature as they accumulate more experience on the job. The first chapter shows that daily ambient temperature has a significant effect on police officers’ professional performance. Inspired by this result, in the second chapter I study the effect of temperature on officers’ online expressed sentiment. Mood changes caused by temperature could be a potential mechanism for officers’ behavioral changes observed in the first chapter. To study this question, I obtained messages posted on an online police forum that is popular among Florida police departments. I find that a 1-standard-deviation increase in temperature leads to a 3.5% increase in the use of profanity. In addition, higher temperature has a negative but nonlinear relationship with expressed sentiment. I also find limited evidence of a change in forum activity or discussion topics on relatively hot days, which suggests that these results are likely to be driven by temperature’s effect on officers’ mood. Taken together, the first two chapters highlight the sensitivity of law enforcement behavior to transitory shocks such as environmental conditions. The third chapter, which is joint work with Xinming Du, explores the impact of the 2018 China- U.S. trade war on air pollution in China. Since the Chinese economic data is heavily censored, we take air pollution as a proxy for measuring economic activity. Using city-industry level trade data, we construct a Bartik-style trade war exposure measure for cities in China and compare the pollution trajectory of cities in the top quartile of our measure to those in the bottom quartile under a difference-in-difference design. In addition, to test whether local governments relaxed their enforcement of environmental policies in response to the trade war, we look at whether firms changed their tendency of polluting in the dark during the trade war. Our analysis finds a negative but small and not robust effect of the U.S. tariffs on China’s air quality and no effect of the Chinese retaliatory tariffs. In addition, we find no impact on disguised pollution behaviors of local firms. We conclude that the trade war had minimal effect on China’s economic activity.

The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) recognized a need for external help to implement a gender perspective in their project on improving air quality in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) extending from 2018-2022, which this thesis is a contribution to. To collect empirical material for the analysis, a cluster interview was conducted on site in Sarajevo with female representatives from ten CSOs working with gender equality nationally, in addition to a household survey targeted at six different cities in BiH through social media with the help of SEPA’s partnering ad agency network. The empirical findings of this study hence consist of local representations of problems regarding gender equality and its links to environmental issues, which were subsequently used to put the goals and problem representations present in the Swedish Foreign Service action plan for feminist foreign policy 2019-2022 and the Strategy for Sweden’s reform cooperation in the Western Balkans and Turkey 2021-2027 in context. This was specifically done with the help of Carol Bacchi’s policy analysis approach “What’s the Problem (Represented to be). Throughout the analysis, it became evident that there was a gap between the discourse of gender equality problems on site in BiH versus how gender equality problems were represented in the analysed Swedish policies steering the project. It also became evident that there was a gap between the horizontal goals of gender equality in these policies, and the resources available at SEPA for the actual implementation.  The conclusion of the analysis implicates the occurrence of shortcomings in Swedish reform cooperation when mainstreaming gender into environmental policies, and that this could potentially lead to efforts reproducing and entrenching gendered and socio-economic inequity.  By exemplifying the relevance of implementing a context-based gender perspective in this specific case, this thesis is hoped to encourage improving the prerequisites for mainstreaming gender into all international reform cooperation projects and applying the Swedish Feminist Foreign Policy accurately.

The human health impacts of anthropogenic climate change continue to intensify. Perhaps most concerning is the rapid rise in ambient temperature, with 10 of the hottest years ever recorded having occurred over the last 15 years (IPCC, 2018; NASA, 2019). A robust literature has accumulated characterizing an extensive list of adverse health effects of heat exposure, identifying a number of groups particularly vulnerable (Ebi et al., 2018). The most recent group identified as highly vulnerable to heat exposure is expectant mothers (Bekkar et al., 2020; Chersich et al., 2020). A consistent relationship has been observed between increased ambient temperature and adverse pregnancy events, including increase in preterm delivery (PTD), small for gestational age, and stillbirth (Bekkar et al., 2020; Chersich et al., 2020) . Utilizing birth records and fetal death records from 2000-2004, we carried out two case-crossover studies assessing the impact of ambient temperature on preterm delivery and stillbirth across the contiguous United States, where 1 in 10 births results in a preterm delivery and 1 in 160 births results in a stillborn fetus. Our aim was to assess how increased temperature, singularly and in combination with air pollution exposure, impacts the odds of experiencing a preterm delivery or stillbirth (Aims 1 and 2). Our third aim, performed with a case-control study, expanded on the exploration of air pollution exposure, examining how traffic related air pollution (measured by maternal residential proximity to major roadways) impacts placental-associated stillbirth (Aim 3). We identified significantly increased odds of preterm delivery and stillbirth associated with a 10-degree Fahrenheit increase in average apparent temperature in the week preceding delivery for babies delivered in the warm season (May – October) and the meteorological summer (June – August). These increases were strongest in the Southern half of the United States and modified by maternal race/ethnicity for both preterm delivery and stillbirth. The increased odds were independent of air pollution exposure (ozone and PM2.5), which had no impact on the odds of preterm delivery or stillbirth. Furthermore, we did not observe a meaningful increase in overall odds of placental-associated stillbirth with increased proximity of the maternal residence to major roads. These studies contribute to the growing literature on the vulnerability of pregnant women to heat exposure and enhance the understanding of environmental risk factors of preterm birth and stillbirth, a chronically understudied health outcome. / 2023-05-14T00:00:00Z

High PM2.5-related mortality and morbidity has become a public health concern in China. To date, there have been few studies investigating individual implementation and use of protective behaviors to counter outdoor PM2.5 air pollution levels in China. This study, therefore, aimed to investigate adults’ attitudes toward evidence-based protective behaviors against outdoor PM2.5 air pollution, the results of which might inform health educators and health promotion specialists about what they should emphasize when educating communities about protective behaviors in the PM2.5 air pollution days. Utilizing the purposing sampling method, a WeChat-based survey was conducted among 300 adult participants living in B residential area in Yuhuatai district of Nanjing, which is a representative city of high urbanization level and PM2.5 air pollution in China. The survey included total 16 items assessing participants’ background information, attitudes toward four evidence-based protective behaviors against PM2.5 air pollution, and knowledge regarding possibly effective protective approaches specifically related to Chinese medicine in the PM2.5 air pollution. The results showed that the importance adults in Nanjing attached to wearing N95 respirator when walking outside, putting air filter (HEPA) at home, and avoiding unprotected outdoor sports activities in the PM2.5 air pollution was greater than closing all the doors, windows, and many openings in the PM2.5 air pollution. Regarding comparison of attitudes between pre- and post-controlled COVID-19 periods, the value adults gave to closing all the doors, windows, and many openings in the PM2.5 air pollution was higher during pre-COVID-19 period, whereas the opposite of circumstance took place when referring to other three protective behaviors. Regarding comparison of attitudes between biographic variables, adults aged 18-50 (including 50) attached greater importance to all the four protective behaviors than those aged 50+. In addition, adults having the habit of checking daily AQI ranked the behaviors of avoiding outdoor sports activities and wearing N95 respirator when walking outside in the PM2.5 air pollution in a higher position than those not. Implications for future research and practice are discussed, based on a critique of the present work.

As multiple regions in the global south urbanize and transform, their social-environmental challenges also reshape. Climate change and ecological degradation intertwine with these processes in ways that have an uneven impact on people and firms with various degrees of vulnerability. In this dissertation, I look at such issues through the lens of sustainable development, with a regional emphasis on Mexico. Standard economic analyses of environmental policy focus on either reducing pollution externalities through mitigation or reducing the harms from exposure by encouraging adaptation. In practice, these issues are both critical, particularly when looking at the health effects of local air pollutants, which can be acute, and policymakers often pair information provision with short and long-run mitigation actions. In Chapter 1, I explore whether, in the context of the Mexico City air quality alert program, information policy is more effective when paired with mitigation. I find that the policy did not improve air quality or health outcomes until the mitigation component, which limited transport emissions, was introduced. I also use sensor-level traffic data, geo-tagged accident reports, and search data as a measure of awareness of the policy to unveil the mechanisms through which considerable short-run improvements in air quality and health are achieved after issuing an alert. I find that the alert reduces car usage even before the driving restrictions enter into place, suggesting that, due to an increased awareness of pollution, people reduce their trips. Chapter 2 studies the effects of regional exposure to extreme temperatures on credit delinquency rates for firms in Mexico. Our exposure variable is defined as the number of days in a quarter that minimum and maximum temperature are below 3°C and above 36°C, respectively, which correspond to the bottom 5 percent and top 5 percent of daily minimum and maximum temperature distribution in the country. We find that extreme temperatures increase delinquency. This effect is mostly driven by extreme heat, and it is concentrated on agricultural firms, but there is also an effect on non-agriculture firms. The impact on non-agricultural firms seems to be driven by general equilibrium effects in rural areas. Chapter 3, provides the first estimation of child penalties in the Mexican labor market. Using an event study approach and an instrumental variable as a robustness check, we estimate the impact of children on employment and wages, unpaid labor, and transitions between informal and formal sectors. We are the first to show that a child’s arrival significantly affects mothers’ paid and unpaid work, and it impacts members of the extended family unevenly, reinforcing traditional gender roles. While low- and middle-income women account for most of the effect of childbirth on wages, all mothers increase time spent on unpaid work.

At the end of the sixteenth century, London was grappling with an unprecedented environmental crisis: rapid population growth produced rampant pollution, land mismanagement, and epidemic disease; entire species of fish disappeared from the Thames; and the city’s growing demands for food and fuel depleted the nation’s natural resources. This dissertation locates innovative responses to these new environmental pressures on the early modern stage. Shakespeare and his contemporaries, I argue, shaped early attitudes and expectations about the ecology of London and its sustainability. Each chapter of “Urban Ecology” focuses on a different resource problem plaguing early modern London—food scarcity, decayed waterways, air pollution and a shortage of space to bury the dead—and shows how groups of plays addressed them using the material and imaginative resources of dramatic form. In constructing stories in which these ecological issues figure prominently, and in offering their own creative responses to these problems, early modern playwrights display a nuanced understanding of London’s environment as a co-fabrication between human and nonhuman forces, even before the terms “ecosystem” or “ecology” had emerged in scientific discourse. To make this co-fabrication visible, “Urban Ecology” reads early modern plays alongside a rich archive of archaeological evidence that re-situates the theater industry as a both a product of and active participant in the London ecosystem. I show how playing companies contributed to urban air pollution by burning noxious sea coal to produce spectacular effects that attracted paying customers; the Bankside playhouses, located on reclaimed marshland, were vulnerable to the Thames and its patterns of tidal flooding; and food sourced from both local and global supply chains was regularly sold during performances. By reconstructing this complex interplay between drama and its environment, this dissertation begins to center the early modern theater industry in the history of ecological thought.

Deteriorating air quality has attracted the interest of policymakers in most parts of the world. Poor air quality is behind many severe health problems on both a global and a local scale. While decarbonization is the primary driver behind the push for broader adoption of electric cars, we hypothesize the presence of significant co-benefits from adopting electric cars, such that electrifying the mode of transportation might reduce air pollution. To test this hypothesis, we evaluated panel data for the stock of electric cars and emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOX) from Swedish municipalities between 2010-2019 using OLS models with fixed effects. The analysis suggests a significant negative correlation between the stock of electric cars and emissions of NOX. The presence of co-benefits suggests a stronger case for subsidizing the adoption of electric cars, beyond the level climate considerations warrant.

Human life takes place as part of a global ecosystem, meaning that human mental health is at least partially tied to the health of the planet. Health experts who seek to promote psychological well-being should consider how changes to the broad ecological system may impact their efforts. Given the potential impact of the environment on human well-being, we conducted a meta-analysis to assess the impact of air pollution on subjective well-being. The goal of this project was to outline the current state of the research on these constructs and provide a clear framework for what research is still needed. Nonsignificant relationships were found for six out of seven of the measured pollutants. Overall, these results appear to indicate a nonsignificant negative relationship between our constructs; however, our model had significant heterogeneity which may impact the validity of these findings. Attempts to reduce statistical heterogeneity demonstrated the importance of complex measurement and study design when studying the impact of ecological environments on well-being.

Thesis: M.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 1977 / Includes bibliographical references. / by Michael K. Martin. / M.S. / M.S. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management