Dear all
I have been looking for maps of year-round / seasonal risk of developing hay fever in various parts of the world. What I often find is forecasts for the next day / week etc.
The only one close to what I am looking for that I found so far is this map of 'pollen hotzones' for the British Isles
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/earthnews/9239047/First-drought-and-floods-now-get-ready-for-bumper-hay-fever-season-warns-Met-Office.html
Similar maps for other parts of the world would be appreciated.
Many thanks
Serban
Hay fever/Pollen allergy is a complicated issue and difficult to map since it is too general to be useful in most cases. Factors that would influence these potential maps:
Peoples predisposition to allergy, which plant species that are in focus, how you classify risk for allergy, which allergy-symptoms that are in focus, exactly what is mapped, the age range of people included, what time-scales, what time of year, meteorological variables related to plant ecology and pollen release etc, biogeography and how it changes with time, wind-conditions etc.
All of these factors will influence what is mapped and how it is interpreted, so it is more common to include some of these factors and then go from there. For example, Vegetation maps can be helpful to determine how a specific species biogeography can impact peoples sensitivity to its' pollen, for example: Article Mapping allergenic pollen vegetation in UK to study environm...
This is also why the telegraph map example from the MetOffice isn't very specific or informative since it takes a lot of different factors and narrows it down to a simple risk assessment which probably isn't very accurate to represent the typical persons allergic experience.
in France:
Le Réseau National de Surveillance Aérobiologique (R.N.S.A.)
www.pollens.fr/en/
RNSA collect pollen and moulds in the air, and clinical data, from 70 towns in France ... organized a clinician network, all working in allergy field in liberal activity.
in Russia:
Pollen monitoring in Perm Krai (Russia) – experience of 6 years
https://pbsociety.org.pl/journals/index.php/aa/article/.../aa.../5760
LV Novoselova - Pollen allergy is a harmful problem for people worldwide ... due to the pollen of Betula, (ii) early summer due to Poaceae pollen, and (iii) late ...
Best regards
Thanks Carl and Marpha for your responses.
Carl, no doubt, the factors you mention are important. An overall map may not reflect well the experience of many individual sufferers. Yet an overall picture has huge implications in terms of medical expenses and effort needed for this particular issue. I find it mind boggling that such maps are not commonly available for most parts of the world... hoping for more answers.
Maps of allergy risk I do not think. But allergic sensitization is directly related with pollen exposure. In the case of global pollen maps:
- Pollenwarndienst.at, calculates nice pollen maps from european historical data:
https://www.pollenwarndienst.at/en/current-data/pollen-load-map-of-europe.html
- In USA you can find information at
https://www.aaaai.org/conditions-and-treatments/allergies
- We have developed an interactive app with the location of known pollen traps, you can also dig in the links of the app:
Article Pollen and spore monitoring in the world
https://www.zaum-online.de/pollen/pollen-monitoring-map-of-the-world.html
Thanks Gregory. anywhere that these maps are averaged across whole seasons or years?
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