▲ 作者:Gemma Dipoppa & Saad Gulzar
▲ 链接:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08046-z
▲ 摘要:
南亚的空气污染每年造成200万人死亡,是一个非常急迫的卫生事件。在冬季收获月份,农作物秸秆燃烧造成的污染占峰值污染的40—60%。尽管这是非法的,但这种做法仍然很普遍。任何遏制这一问题的解决方案都需要政府采取大规模行动。
在此,我们对负责控制焚烧的官员进行激励是否可以缓解这一现象进行了研究。利用十年来来自卫星的风、火和健康数据以及人口与健康调查项目的调查,我们表明了官僚激励对农作物焚烧产生了影响:当风最有可能将污染引向邻近管辖区时,火灾发生率增加15%;当风污染自己的管辖区时,火灾发生率减少14.5%。这些影响随着官僚激励和能力的增强而扩大。我们还发现,禁止焚烧的官僚行为阻止了潜在的人为焚烧行为,进一步减少了13%的火灾。
最后,利用大气模型,我们估计子宫内暴露于燃烧污染的每增加一个对数,就会使儿童死亡率增加30—36‰,从而强调了官方行动的重要性。与越来越多的人认为焚烧农作物的问题难以解决的观点相反,这些发现强调了现有官员在适当激励下可以改善环境管理和公共卫生结果的具体方法。
▲ Abstract:
Air pollution in South Asia is a health emergency, responsible for 2 million deaths every year. Crop residue burning accounts for 40–60% of peak pollution during the winter harvest months. Despite being illegal, this practice remains widespread. Any solution to curb the problem necessitates government action at scale. Here we study whether leveraging the incentives of bureaucrats tasked with controlling burning can mitigate this phenomenon. Using a decade of wind, fire and health data from satellites and surveys from the Demographic and Health Surveys Program, we show that crop burning responds to bureaucrat incentives: fires increase by 15% when wind is most likely to direct pollution to neighbouring jurisdictions, and decrease by 14.5% when it pollutes their own. These effects intensify with stronger bureaucratic incentives and capacity. We also find that bureaucrat action against burning deters future polluters, further reducing fires by 13%. Finally, using an atmospheric model, we estimate that one log increase in in utero exposure to pollution from burning raises child mortality by 30–36 deaths per 1,000 births, underscoring the importance of bureaucrat action. Contrary to the growing beliefs that the problem of crop burning is intractable, these findings highlight specific ways in which existing bureaucrats, when properly incentivized, can improve environmental management and public health outcomes.