Will "Air Eutrophication" Increase the Risk of Ecological Threat to Public Health?
Environ Sci Technol
; 57(29): 10512-10520, 2023 07 25.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-37428654
ABSTRACT
Aquatic eutrophication, often with anthropogenic causes, facilitates blooms of cyanobacteria including cyanotoxin producing species, which profoundly impact aquatic ecosystems and human health. An emerging concern is that aquatic eutrophication may interact with other environmental changes and thereby lead to unexpected cascading effects on terrestrial systems. Here, we synthesize recent evidence showing the possibility that accelerating eutrophication will spill over from aquatic ecosystems to the atmosphere via "air eutrophication", a novel concept that refers to a process promoting the growth of airborne algae, some of them with the capacity to produce toxic compounds for humans and other organisms. Being catalyzed by various anthropogenic forcingsâincluding aquatic eutrophication, climate warming, air contamination, and artificial light at nightâaccelerated air eutrophication may be expected in the future, posing a potentially increasing risk of threat to public health and the environment. So far knowledge of this topic is sparse, and we therefore consider air eutrophication a potentially important research field and propose an agenda of cross-discipline research. As a contribution, we have calculated a tolerable daily intake of 17 ng m-3 day-1 for the nasal intake of microcystins by humans.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Cyanobacteria
/
Ecosystem
Type of study:
Etiology_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Limits:
Humans
Language:
En
Journal:
Environ Sci Technol
Year:
2023
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
China