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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Article
Author(s)
Kishor Shrestha1, Pramen P. Shrestha2, and Geeta Shrestha3
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DOI:10.17265/1934-7359/2017.02.009
Affiliation(s)
1. General Engineering Department, Montana Tech of the University of Montana, Montana 59701, USA
2. Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Department, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada 89154, USA
3. Human Rights Officer, National Human Rights Commission, Harihar Bhawan, Lalitpur, Nepal
ABSTRACT
Air pollution is one of the
leading cause of death for underdeveloped as well as developed countries.
In 2011, the air pollution was the
second leading cause of death in one of the main hospitals of the Kathmandu
Valley, Nepal, and it was the third
leading cause in the United States. Burning fossil fuels for transportation was
one of the major causes. Among various impacts of the air pollution, COPD (chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease) was one of the main consequences. In the 570 km2 Kathmandu Valley, vehicle
registration was increased
from 45,871 in 1990/1991
to 570,145 in 2010/2011,
an increase of over 12-fold
over 20 years. The vehicle registration and number of COPD patients’ data were
collected from various government divisions. In addition, the average daily
travel distance and fuel mileage data were collected with a survey with residents of the Kathmandu Valley.
This paper calculates the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions
by transportation sector and determines correlation between CO2 emissions and COPD patients. Results show that there was a very high level of
CO2 emissions, and it was positively correlated with the number of
COPD patients in the valley.
KEYWORDS
Carbon dioxide emissions, health impact, Kathmandu.
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