Investigating the Variation of Benzene and 1,3-Butadiene in the UK during 2000–2020

Abstract

The concentrations of benzene and 1,3-butadiene in urban, suburban, and rural sites of the U.K. were investigated across 20 years (2000–2020) to assess the impacts of pollution control strategies. Given the known toxicity of these pollutants, it is necessary to investigate national long-term trends across a range of site types. We conclude that whilst legislative intervention has been successful in reducing benzene and 1,3-butadiene pollution from vehicular sources, previously overlooked sources must now be considered as they begin to dominate in contribution to ambient pollution. Benzene concentrations in urban areas were found to be ~5-fold greater than those in rural areas, whilst 1,3-butadiene concentrations were up to ~10-fold greater. The seasonal variation of pollutant concentration exhibited a maximum in the winter and a minimum in the summer with summer: winter ratios of 1:2.5 and 1:1.6 for benzene and 1,3-butadiene, respectively. Across the period investigated (2000–2020), the concentrations of benzene decreased by 85% and 1,3-butadiene concentrations by 91%. A notable difference could be seen between the two decades studied (2000–2010, 2010–2020) with a significantly greater drop evident in the first decade than in the second, proving, whilst previously successful, legislative interventions are no longer sufficiently limiting ambient concentrations of these pollutants. The health impacts of these pollutants are discussed, and cancer impact indices were utilized allowing estimation of cancer impacts across the past 20 years for different site types. Those particularly vulnerable to the adverse health effects of benzene and 1,3-butadiene pollution are discussed.

Wildfires Increase Concentrations of Hazardous Air Pollutants in Downwind Communities

“…For these HAPs, it is possible that seasonality influenced our ability to detect enhancement in wildfire smoke. Both 1,3-butadiene and benzene typically have higher concentrations in winter, in the absence of smoke, , and were identified in the permutation test as significant with a shorter May-September fire season (Table S3), suggesting that higher nonsmoke values later in the fire season (e.g., November/December) could have masked differences. It is also possible that concentrations in smoke were at times too small to detect compared with other sources (e.g., carbon tetrachloride), , and our method was unable to detect pollutants with short atmospheric lifetimes (e.g., benzene) .…”