Environmental and health impacts of aerosols

  E-mail   Print

Guest Editors
Prof. Ian Colbeck
School of Biological Sciences, University of Essex, Colchester, UK

Prof. Mihalis Lazaridis
Technical University of Crete

Manuscript Topics
Invitation to submit an original research article, opinion paper or review article for a special issue of AIMS Environmental Science:
Theme: Environmental and health impacts of aerosols

An aerosol is a stable suspension of solid and liquid particles in a gas. The particulate portion of an aerosol is referred to as particulate matter (PM). The most recent estimates from the World Health Organization indicate that around 7 million people die as a result of air pollution exposure. Indoor air pollution was linked to 4.3 million deaths and 3.7 million from urban and rural sources worldwide. Particulate matter has been linked to a range of serious respiratory and cardiovascular health problems including: premature mortality, decreased lung function, aggravated asthma, aggravation of respiratory and cardiovascular disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Because of the negative health impacts of aerosol particles a number of countries have established Ambient Air Quality Standards to limit the levels of air pollutants, such as fine and coarse particles, in ambient air. In 2013 the European Commission stated that existing ambient air quality standards were insufficient to protect health and have recently proposed new emission ceilings for fine PM. In China the government recently introduced stricter regulations and aims to reduce air pollution by over 10% by 2017.

Atmospheric aerosols play an important role in the global climate system. However aerosols have been assessed, by the IPCC, as having the largest radiative forcing uncertainty. As most aerosols are brighter than the land or ocean they can have a direct cooling effect by reflecting radiation from the Sun back to space. However some aerosols, such as black carbon, absorb significant amounts of radiation and so warm up the layer of the atmosphere carrying the black carbon. Atmospheric aerosols also indirectly influence climate by modifying cloud amounts, microphysical and radiative properties. They can change the precipitation efficiency and overall the hydrological cycle.

This issue invites articles that address recent developments in the environmental and health impacts of aerosols. The topics of interest include but are not limited to dosimetry modelling, the impact of particulate matter on human exposure, mechanisms of exposure, source characterization, atmospheric modelling, climate change, biomass burning aerosol, urban aerosols, indoor aerosols.

Paper submission
The deadline for manuscript submission is 15 December 2015.

Instruction for Authors


Nikolaos Barmparesos, Vasiliki D. Assimakopoulos, Margarita Niki Assimakopoulos, Evangelia Tsairidi
+ Abstract     + HTML     + PDF(1395 KB)
Senem Ozgen, Giovanna Ripamonti, Alessandro Malandrini, Martina S. Ragettli, Giovanni Lonati
+ Abstract     + HTML     + PDF(640 KB)
Claudia Würtz Jürgensen, Anne Mette Madsen
+ Abstract     + HTML     + PDF(425 KB)
Open Access Journals
Open Access Journals