RAINS-Asia: The First Integrated Assessment of Air Pollution in Asia
In 1990, fossil fuels accounted for about 80% of energy consumption in Asia. Because of its abundance and easy recoverability, especially in India and China, coal was the fuel of choice in the foreseeable future. If these trends continued, sulfur dioxide emissions from Asia were expected to equal the emissions from North America and Europe combined.
These trends portended a variety of local, regional, and global environmental impacts. Acid rain damages human health, ecosystems, and built surfaces. Many ecosystems will be unable to absorb these increased acidic depositions, leading to irreversible ecosystem damage with far-reaching implications for health, forestry, agriculture, fisheries, and tourism.
RAINS-ASIA was developed as a scenario-generating tool to estimate the extent of damages caused by acid rain and to review the costs and impacts of alternatives to provide a look into the future. Its use extends from national-, regional-, and city-scale evaluation and inputs for cost-effective options analyses, to international negotiations on transboundary pollution.