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The effect of heatwaves on the number of visits to national parks and reserves
BACKGROUND: Climate change is leading to an increase in the frequency and intensity of heatwaves in many regions of the world. Climate change is also related to air pollution. Both heatwaves and air pollution have adverse health effects, and can also affect social behaviors, including tourism and to...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10411752/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37556414 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0289201 |
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author | Barnett-Itzhaki, Zohar Sar-Shalom, Aviv Cohn, Liav Chen, Lior Steinitz, Ofer |
author_facet | Barnett-Itzhaki, Zohar Sar-Shalom, Aviv Cohn, Liav Chen, Lior Steinitz, Ofer |
author_sort | Barnett-Itzhaki, Zohar |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Climate change is leading to an increase in the frequency and intensity of heatwaves in many regions of the world. Climate change is also related to air pollution. Both heatwaves and air pollution have adverse health effects, and can also affect social behaviors, including tourism and touristic activities. The aim of this study was to examine the association between heatwaves, air pollution and visits to national parks and reserves in Israel. METHODS: Data on 68,518 visits in 51 national parks and reserves in Israel in the years 2016–2019 was crossed with temperature and air pollution data (represented by particulate matter PM(10)) and analyzed using statistical tests. RESULTS: Number of visits, as a function of temperature followed a unimodal distribution, in which more visits were reported on mild temperature days (in comparison to hot or cold days). In addition, the number of visits in sites with beaches was linearly correlated with temperature. Negative associations were found between number of visits and heatwaves, and between number of visits and exceedances in PM(10) levels. CONCLUSIONS: Heatwaves were shown to have a negative effect on the number of visits in national parks and reserves in Israel. The negative association between exceedances in air pollution and number of visits may be mediated by the positive correlation between air pollution exceedance events and heatwaves. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10411752 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-104117522023-08-10 The effect of heatwaves on the number of visits to national parks and reserves Barnett-Itzhaki, Zohar Sar-Shalom, Aviv Cohn, Liav Chen, Lior Steinitz, Ofer PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: Climate change is leading to an increase in the frequency and intensity of heatwaves in many regions of the world. Climate change is also related to air pollution. Both heatwaves and air pollution have adverse health effects, and can also affect social behaviors, including tourism and touristic activities. The aim of this study was to examine the association between heatwaves, air pollution and visits to national parks and reserves in Israel. METHODS: Data on 68,518 visits in 51 national parks and reserves in Israel in the years 2016–2019 was crossed with temperature and air pollution data (represented by particulate matter PM(10)) and analyzed using statistical tests. RESULTS: Number of visits, as a function of temperature followed a unimodal distribution, in which more visits were reported on mild temperature days (in comparison to hot or cold days). In addition, the number of visits in sites with beaches was linearly correlated with temperature. Negative associations were found between number of visits and heatwaves, and between number of visits and exceedances in PM(10) levels. CONCLUSIONS: Heatwaves were shown to have a negative effect on the number of visits in national parks and reserves in Israel. The negative association between exceedances in air pollution and number of visits may be mediated by the positive correlation between air pollution exceedance events and heatwaves. Public Library of Science 2023-08-09 /pmc/articles/PMC10411752/ /pubmed/37556414 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0289201 Text en © 2023 Barnett-Itzhaki et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Barnett-Itzhaki, Zohar Sar-Shalom, Aviv Cohn, Liav Chen, Lior Steinitz, Ofer The effect of heatwaves on the number of visits to national parks and reserves |
title | The effect of heatwaves on the number of visits to national parks and reserves |
title_full | The effect of heatwaves on the number of visits to national parks and reserves |
title_fullStr | The effect of heatwaves on the number of visits to national parks and reserves |
title_full_unstemmed | The effect of heatwaves on the number of visits to national parks and reserves |
title_short | The effect of heatwaves on the number of visits to national parks and reserves |
title_sort | effect of heatwaves on the number of visits to national parks and reserves |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10411752/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37556414 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0289201 |
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