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develop recommendations to address the urgent health and sustainability challenges
in science, policy and practice.
20.2 Evidence of Effects of Biodiversity on
Physical Health
Biodiverse natural environments and climate change interact to influence human
physical health and well-being in positive and negative ways. Case study exam-
ples illustrate these interrelationships for extreme heat, allergenic plants and
vector- borne diseases. The effects of nature and health relationships on specific
populations groups – children and different socio-economic groups – are
highlighted.
There are important links between biodiversity and physical health as demon-
strated by the review of Sarah Lindley and co-authors. They argue that both bio-
diversity and climate change
set important boundary conditions for human health,
as they influence many elements that impact on health and well-being of individu-
als, for example through altered ecosystem functions and services. The authors
point out that, especially in the face of a changing climate, NBS are needed to
adapt to or mitigate negative climate-induced stressors, such as heat waves,
reduced air quality, flooding or water quality regulation, that have serious impacts
on human health. Many of the available studies are drawn from urban environ-
ments where climate effects may be experienced most dramatically due to the
urban heat-island effect, and evidenced by the presented case study from Greater
Manchester, England. The authors point to the need to consider socio-economic
confounding factors to fully address the challenges of understanding the links
between biodiversity and physical health, and for research to develop robust met-
rics and indicators to measure not only the state but also trends of linkages.
Overall, it will be important to identify what configurations of green spaces in
cities are most beneficial to promote health in order to provide input to urban
planning and management.
Athanasios Damialis and co-authors discuss
the negative effects of biodiversity
and physical health by highlighting the specific issue of pollen allergies. As allergy
prevalence has increased worldwide, partly due to a warming climate, their review
provides a greater understanding of the emerging challenges. In particular, the
authors call for better spatial and temporal risk mapping and forecasting of poten-
tial pollen exposure to advise allergy-sensitive individuals as well as to inform
urban planning measures to develop green spaces that can minimise allergenic pol-
len exposure. Importantly, pollen can be a carrier of biochemical complex particles
that can additionally affect health, and only recently has an understanding of the
pollen microbiome begun to emerge. With the spread of invasive and alien aller-
genic species in a changing climate, such as ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia), we
need to better understand how these distributions can be assessed, predicted and
proactively managed. Here, the development of automated, near-real-time pollen
20 Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change: Perspectives for Science…
Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change
- Titel
- Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change
- Autoren
- Melissa Marselle
- Jutta Stadler
- Horst Korn
- Katherine Irvine
- Aletta Bonn
- Verlag
- Springer Open
- Datum
- 2019
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-030-02318-8
- Abmessungen
- 15.5 x 24.0 cm
- Seiten
- 508
- Schlagwörter
- Environment, Environmental health, Applied ecology, Climate change, Biodiversity, Public health, Regional planning, Urban planning
- Kategorien
- Naturwissenschaften Umwelt und Klima