Characterising populations living close to intensive farming and composting facilities in England

doi:10.1007/s11783-020-1332-z

Front. Environ. Sci. Eng.

2021, Vol. 15

Issue (3) : 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-020-1332-z

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Characterising populations living close to intensive farming and composting facilities in England

Philippa Douglas^1,²(

), Daniela Fecht³, Deborah Jarvis¹

¹. National Heart and Lung Institute, MRC Centre for Environment and Health, Imperial College London, London, SW3 6LZ, UK
². Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards, Public Health England, Harwell Campus, Didcot, Oxfordshire, OX11 0RQ, UK
³. UK Small Area Health Statistics Unit, MRC Centre for Environment and Health, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, W2 1PG, UK

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Abstract

• Bioaerosol emitted from farming and composting facilities may pose health risks.

• We describe population characteristics around these sites and infer public concern.

• Sites were mapped and overlaid with population, demographic and school data.

• Approximately 16% of the population and 15% of schools are located near these sites.

• More community health studies need to be conducted around these sites.

Bioaerosol exposure has been linked to adverse respiratory conditions. Intensive farming and composting facilities are important anthropogenic sources of bioaerosols. We aimed to characterise populations living close to intensive farming and composting facilities. We also infer whether the public are becoming more concerned about anthropogenic bioaerosol emissions, using reports of air pollution related incidents attributed to facilities. We mapped the location of 1,257 intensive farming and 310 composting facilities in England in relation to the resident population and its characteristics (sex and age), area characteristics (deprivation proxy and rural/urban classification) and school locations stratified by pre-defined distance bands from these bioaerosol sources. We also calculated the average number of air pollution related incidents per year per facility. We found that more than 16% of the population and 15% of schools are located within 4,828 m of an intensive farming facility or 4,000 m of a composting facility; few people (0.01%) live very close to these sites and tend to be older people. Close to composting facilities, populations are more likely to be urban and more deprived. The number of incidents were attributed to a small proportion of facilities; population characteristics around these facilities were similar. Results indicate that populations living near composting facilities (particularly>250 to≤4,000 m) are mostly located in urban areas (80%–88% of the population), which supports the need for more community health studies to be conducted. Results could also be used to inform risk management strategies at facilities with higher numbers of incidents.

Keywords Composting Intensive farming Bioaerosol Population characteristics Public health

Corresponding Author(s): Philippa Douglas

Issue Date: 10 November 2020

Cite this article:

Philippa Douglas,Daniela Fecht,Deborah Jarvis. Characterising populations living close to intensive farming and composting facilities in England[J]. Front. Environ. Sci. Eng., 2021, 15(3): 40.

URL:

https://academic.hep.com.cn/fese/EN/10.1007/s11783-020-1332-z
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fese/EN/Y2021/V15/I3/40

Fig.1 The number of permitted intensive farming and composting facilities in England 2010?2017. Contains Environment Agency information © Environment Agency.

Distance (m)	Justification
Intensive farms
100	Current distance set by the EA whereby an intensive farm has to conduct a ‘site specific bioaerosols risk assessment’ if there are any ‘sensitive receptors’ (e.g. a dwelling or workplace) within 100 m of the intensive farm (GOV.UK, 2018)
500	Distance used in two cross-sectional epidemiological studies that used proxy measures for exposure (Radon et al., 2007; Smit et al., 2014).
1,000	Distance used two epidemiological studies (one case-control and one cross-sectional) that used proxy measures for exposure (Smit et al., 2014; Huijskens et al., 2016). Schinasi et al., (2011) measured and detected bioaerosol (endotoxin) at around this distance (the exact location of monitoring is not stated in this study, although it is implied that is was conducted ‘within 1.5 km’ of the farming facility).
4,828	Distance used in a cross-sectional epidemiological study that used proxy measures for exposure (equates to approx. 3 miles) (Mirabelli et al., 2006)
Composting sites
250	Current distance set by the EA whereby a composting facility has to conduct a ‘site specific bioaerosols risk assessment’ if there are any ‘sensitive receptors’ (e.g. a dwelling or workplace) within 250 m of the composting facility (Environment Agency, 2018c)
750	Distance bioaerosols have been detected above background levels from composting facilities at this distance (Pankhurst et al., 2011; Williams et al., 2013), and was a distance band used in a small area ecological epidemiological study (Douglas et al., 2016)
1,500	Distance bioaerosols have been detected from composting facilities (Reinthaler et al., 1997; Williams et al., 2013), and was a distance band used in a small area ecological study (Douglas et al., 2016)
2,500	Control distance used in small area ecological study were it was assumed that there was no contribution above background levels (Douglas et al., 2016)
4,000	Full extent of the area included in a recent dispersion modelling study that estimated bioaerosol exposure from composting facilities (Williams et al., 2019) and subsequent epidemiological analysis (Roca-Barcelo et al., 2020). A larger area was used compared to (Douglas et al., 2016) to account for the influence of wind speed and direction.

Tab.1 Justification for distance bands used for descriptive statistics for both intensive farms and composting facilities

Tab.2 Characteristics of Census Output Areas (COAs) and their population by distance bands from intensive farming facilities

Fig.2 Proportion of the population living within each Carstairs deprivation quintile by distance band from intensive farming facility, for urban areas (top) and rural areas (bottom). A deprivation quintile of 1 represents the least deprived areas.

Tab.3 Characteristics of Census Output Areas (COAs) and their population by distance bands to composting facilities

Fig.3 Proportion of the population living within each Carstairs deprivation quintile by distance band from composting facility for urban areas (top) and rural areas (bottom). A deprivation quintile of 1 represents the least deprived areas

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