Impacts of climate change on human health
- Created by: FerMer15
- Created on: 27-02-18 16:50
View mindmap
- CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS
- Agricultural productivity
- Direct impacts
- Gains
- Crops grown in lower latitudes could become viable further north and yields could increase by 30%
- Increased crop yields in mid and high latitudes
- Longer planting seasons e.g. in Russia leading to a 64 million increase in over 245 million hectares
- Losses
- Varying rainfall patterns e.g. a decrease in the tropics and subtropics
- Increased heat stress on crops in arid and tropical regions
- Gains
- Indirect impacts
- Pests and diseases: Warmer winters reduce pest deaths
- Sea level rise: flooding of low-lying coastal agriculture
- Changes in water availability: irrigation water may come from distant places which are affected by climate changes
- Direct impacts
- Vector-borne diseases may increase their range
- Lyme disease: most common in Northern hemisphere and associated with warmer and more humid conditions
- Dengue fever: additiional 2 billion people could be exposed to vector mosquito by 2080 due to climate change
- West Nile Virus: outbreak in US from 1999 to 2010 resulted in more than 1900 deaths
- Zika virus: has spread from Africa to South and Central America e.g. Brazil in 2015.
- Nutritional standards
- Least developed regions
- Most vulnerable. Unpredictable rainfall leading to floods and droughts resulting in crop failure.
- Over reliance on crops which are less likely to fail - may lead to malnutrition
- Developing regions
- Tend to increase meat consumption (e.g. in China) resulting in more methane, more clearance of land for grazing thus exacerbating climate change
- Developed regions:
- Use of different pesticides which may affects safety and nutritional content of food
- Increasing food prices may lead to worse diets (obesity) and increase health inequalities
- Least developed regions
- Thermal stress
- Heatwaves
- Main risks are dehydration, heat exhaustion and heatstroke, among the young, elderly and sick
- 2003 heatwave in France resulted in 15,000 deaths
- Lead to smogs, toxic algal blooms, odour, dust, vermin, wildfires, water shortages
- Cold spells
- Death rates in winter are 25% higher
- Mainly impacts those with heart diseases and respiratory diseases
- Climate change likely to bring milder winters thus reduce winter mortality
- Heatwaves
- Agricultural productivity
Comments
No comments have yet been made