Conservation cobenefits from air pollution regulation: Evidence from birds

Massive wildlife losses over the past 50 y have brought new urgency to identifying both the drivers of population decline and potential solutions. We provide large-scale evidence that air pollution, specifically ozone, is associated with declines in bird abundance in the United States. We show that...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2020-12, Vol.117 (49), p.30900-30906
Main Authors: Liang, Yuanning, Rudik, Ivan, Zou, Eric Yongchen, Johnston, Alison, Rodewald, Amanda D., Kling, Catherine L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Air Pollutants - toxicity
Air pollution
Air Pollution - analysis
Air quality
Animals
Biological Sciences
Bird populations
Birds
Birds - physiology
Conservation
Conservation of Natural Resources
Emissions
Environmental health
Environmental regulations
Geography
INAUGURAL ARTICLES
Outdoor air quality
Ozone
Ozone - toxicity
Population decline
Public health
Regulation
Social Sciences
United States
Wildlife
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Summary:Massive wildlife losses over the past 50 y have brought new urgency to identifying both the drivers of population decline and potential solutions. We provide large-scale evidence that air pollution, specifically ozone, is associated with declines in bird abundance in the United States. We show that an air pollution regulation limiting ozone precursors emissions has delivered substantial benefits to bird conservation. Our estimates imply that air quality improvements over the past 4 decades have stemmed the decline in bird populations, averting the loss of 1.5 billion birds, ∼20% of current totals. Our results highlight that in addition to protecting human health, air pollution regulations have previously unrecognized and unquantified conservation cobenefits.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.2013568117