Effectiveness of road dust suppressants: insights from particulate matter-related health damage

Although dust suppressants are widely applied to control road dust pollution, a consensus on their effectiveness has not been reached. To evaluate the effectiveness of dust suppressants (a calcium-magnesium complex) from health risks and health damage, spraying and sampling activities were conducted at four sites in Beijing. Using inhalation risk model and health damage assessment, health risks of PM_x for three sensitive occupational groups were calculated and converted to life and economic loss. Results revealed that dust suppressants can indeed mitigate PM pollution and its accompanying health risks and health damage in road dust, but at a limited efficiency. By spraying dust suppressants, the total PM-related life loss reduced by 1.60E-02 years and 2.50E-04 years in urban and suburban areas on average, and the total willingness to pay (WTP) values decreased by 120 and 50 US$ for PM_2.5 and PM₁₀, indicating a more considerable environmental gain if dust suppressants were sprayed in additional regions when necessary. Overall, our study demonstrated that the effectiveness of dust suppressants cannot be pictured only by the variations of pollutant concentrations, and indicators with practice and economic value should be more useful for traffic-related pollution management.