Biodiversity, air quality and human health

Abstract

Air pollution is a significant problem in cities across the world. It affects human health and well-being, ecosystem health, crops, climate, visibility and human-made materials. Health effects related to air pollution include its impact on the pulmonary, cardiac, vascular and neurological systems (Section 2). Trees affect air quality through a number of means (Section 3) and can be used to improve air quality (Section 4). However, air pollution also affects tree health and plant diversity (Section 5). Bioindicators can be useful for monitoring air quality and indicating environmental health (Section 6). Understanding the impacts of vegetation biodiversity on air quality and air quality on vegetation biodiversity is essential to sustaining healthy and diverse ecosystems, and for improving air quality and consequently human health and well-being.

Citation

Nowak, David J.; Jovan, Sarah; Branquinho,Christina; Augusto, Sofia; Ribeiro, Manuel C.; Kretsch, Conor E. 2015. Biodiversity, air quality and human health. In: Connecting global priorities: biodiversity and human health: a state of knowledge review. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization: 63-74. Chapter 4.