Economic valuation related to public health due to the contamination of particulate matter less than 10 microns in Arequipa, Peru (#1976)

Authors

Velasquez Apaza, Joel Anthony

Valdivia Chirinos, Verónica Guadalupe

Caldas Bellido, Nicole Fernanda

Abstract

This paper addresses the economic valuation of environmental costs related to health problems arising from PM₁₀ particulate matter less than 10 microns) air pollution in Arequipa in 2017. The study was conducted in the 13 most populated districts of the metropolitan area of Arequipa, totaling 956,226 inhabitants according to the 2017 Census. To assess the level of exposure of the population to PM₁₀, ArcGIS 10.5 software was used, which with the IDW (Inverse Distance Weighting) tool calculates the dispersion of air pollutants in the study area using data from stations placed by the Executive Directorate of Environmental Health (DESA) of the Regional Health Management of Arequipa, this to estimate the average concentration in each of the 13 districts of the study area. Subsequently, with the help of concentration response functions (CRF), the cases of mortality and morbidity attributable to pollution are calculated; for the study, cardiovascular diseases and respiratory diseases were taken into account, in addition to three possible air quality scenarios: Scenario 1 reduction of PM₁₀ to 0 μg/m³, scenario 2 reduction to 15 μg/m³ (WHO Standard) and scenario 3 reduction to 50 μg/m³ (ECA Peru). Finally, the value of a life year (VOLY) and the willingness to pay (WTP) are used to calculate the costs of mortality and morbidity reduction respectively. Obtaining an environmental economic value for scenario 1 of 414,06 million USD, for scenario 2 a value of 342,30 million USD and for scenario 3 a total of 174,88 million USD, proving that the more PM₁₀ pollution is reduced, the greater the economic benefits will be.