Trans-provincial health impacts of atmospheric mercury emissions in China

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

Mercury (Hg) exposure poses substantial risks to human health. Investigating a longer chain from economic activities to human health can reveal the sources and critical processes of Hg-related health risks. Thus, we develop a more comprehensive assessment method which is applied to mainland China—the largest global Hg emitter. We present a map of Hg-related health risks in China and estimate that 0.14 points of per-foetus intelligence quotient (IQ) decrements and 7,360 deaths from fatal heart attacks are related to the intake of methylmercury in 2010. This study, for the first time, reveals the significant impacts of interprovincial trade on Hg-related health risks across the whole country. For instance, interprovincial trade induced by final consumption prevents 0.39 × 10 ⁻² points for per-foetus IQ decrements and 194 deaths from fatal heart attacks. These findings highlight the importance of policy decisions in different stages of economic supply chains to reduce Hg-related health risks.

Abstract

Mercury (Hg) is a global neurotoxic pollutant and has a long chain from economic activities to human health risks. Here the authors presented a map of Hg-related health risks in China and found significant impacts of interprovincial trade on health risks, such as the prevention of deaths from fatal heart attacks by the trade induced by final consumption.

Related collections

Most cited references 69

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

International trade drives biodiversity threats in developing nations.

M Lenzen, D. Moran, K Kanemoto … (2012)

Human activities are causing Earth's sixth major extinction event-an accelerating decline of the world's stocks of biological diversity at rates 100 to 1,000 times pre-human levels. Historically, low-impact intrusion into species habitats arose from local demands for food, fuel and living space. However, in today's increasingly globalized economy, international trade chains accelerate habitat degradation far removed from the place of consumption. Although adverse effects of economic prosperity and economic inequality have been confirmed, the importance of international trade as a driver of threats to species is poorly understood. Here we show that a significant number of species are threatened as a result of international trade along complex routes, and that, in particular, consumers in developed countries cause threats to species through their demand of commodities that are ultimately produced in developing countries. We linked 25,000 Animalia species threat records from the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List to more than 15,000 commodities produced in 187 countries and evaluated more than 5 billion supply chains in terms of their biodiversity impacts. Excluding invasive species, we found that 30% of global species threats are due to international trade. In many developed countries, the consumption of imported coffee, tea, sugar, textiles, fish and other manufactured items causes a biodiversity footprint that is larger abroad than at home. Our results emphasize the importance of examining biodiversity loss as a global systemic phenomenon, instead of looking at the degrading or polluting producers in isolation. We anticipate that our findings will facilitate better regulation, sustainable supply-chain certification and consumer product labelling.

0 comments Cited 346 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: not found
Book: not found

Input–Output Analysis

Ronald E Miller, Peter Blair (2009)

0 comments Cited 307 times – based on 0 reviews

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: found

Is Open Access

Chinese CO 2 emission flows have reversed since the global financial crisis

Zhifu Mi, Jing Meng, Dabo Guan … (2017)

This study seeks to estimate the carbon implications of recent changes in China’s economic development patterns and role in global trade in the post-financial-crisis era. We utilised the latest socioeconomic datasets to compile China’s 2012 multiregional input-output (MRIO) table. Environmentally extended input-output analysis and structural decomposition analysis (SDA) were applied to investigate the driving forces behind changes in CO2 emissions embodied in China’s domestic and foreign trade from 2007 to 2012. Here we show that emission flow patterns have changed greatly in both domestic and foreign trade since the financial crisis. Some economically less developed regions, such as Southwest China, have shifted from being a net emission exporter to being a net emission importer. In terms of foreign trade, emissions embodied in China’s exports declined from 2007 to 2012 mainly due to changes in production structure and efficiency gains, while developing countries became the major destination of China’s export emissions.

0 comments Cited 192 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Contributors

Sai Liang:

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6306-5800

liangsai@bnu.edu.cn

Zhifu Mi:

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8106-0694

z.mi@ucl.ac.uk

Jiong Shu: jshu@geo.ecnu.edu.cn

Zhifeng Yang: zfyang@gdut.edu.cn

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Nat Commun

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Nat Commun

Title: Nature Communications

Publisher: Nature Publishing Group UK (London )

ISSN (Electronic): 2041-1723

Publication date (Electronic): 2 April 2019

Publication date PMC-release: 2 April 2019

Publication date Collection: 2019

Volume: 10

Electronic Location Identifier: 1484

Affiliations

[1 ]ISNI 0000 0004 0369 6365, GRID grid.22069.3f, Key Laboratory of Geographic Information Science (Ministry of Education), School of Geographic Sciences, , East China Normal University, ; Shanghai, 200241 People’s Republic of China

[2 ]ISNI 0000 0004 1789 9964, GRID grid.20513.35, State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, , Beijing Normal University, ; Beijing, 100875 People’s Republic of China

[3 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2256 9319, GRID grid.11135.37, Ministry of Education Laboratory of Earth Surface Process, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, , Peking University, ; Beijing, 100871 People’s Republic of China

[4 ]ISNI 0000000121901201, GRID grid.83440.3b, The Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management, , University College London, ; London, WC1E 7HB UK

[5 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2314 964X, GRID grid.41156.37, School of Atmospheric Sciences, , Nanjing University, ; Nanjing, Jiangsu 210023 People’s Republic of China

[6 ]ISNI 0000000121885934, GRID grid.5335.0, Department of Politics and International Studies, , University of Cambridge, ; Cambridge, CB3 9DT UK

[7 ]ISNI 0000 0004 1761 2484, GRID grid.33763.32, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, , Tianjin University, ; Tianjin, 300072 People’s Republic of China

[8 ]ISNI 0000 0004 0368 8103, GRID grid.24539.39, School of Environment and Natural Resources, , Renmin University of China, ; Beijing, 100872 People’s Republic of China

[9 ]ISNI 0000 0001 0040 0205, GRID grid.411851.8, Institute of Environmental and Ecological Engineering, , Guangdong University of Technology, ; Guangzhou, Guangdong 510006 People’s Republic of China

Author information

Sai Liang http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6306-5800

Zhifu Mi http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8106-0694

Jing Meng http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8708-0485

Article

Publisher ID: 9080

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-09080-6

PMC ID: 6445112

PubMed ID: 30940811

SO-VID: 829c5b29-2479-4d3b-a3cc-8ebb96363929

License:

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

History

Date received : 2 June 2018

Date accepted : 19 February 2019

Custom metadata

ScienceOpen disciplines: Uncategorized

Data availability:

ScienceOpen disciplines: Uncategorized

Comments

Comment on this article

scite_

Cited by 40

See all cited by

Most referenced authors 811

See all reference authors

Trans-provincial health impacts of atmospheric mercury emissions in China

Read this article at

Abstract

Abstract

Related collections

UCL: UN SDG 03 Good Health and Well-Being

Most cited references 69

International trade drives biodiversity threats in developing nations.

Input–Output Analysis

Chinese CO 2 emission flows have reversed since the global financial crisis

Author and article information

Contributors

Journal

Affiliations

Author information

Article

History

Categories

Custom metadata

Comments

Comment on this article

Similar content 156

Cited by 40

Most referenced authors 811