“Let’s go to Cusco so we can breathe fresh air,” Peruvians say when they need to escape the traffic and busy life of the main cities.

Although many peruvians consider the sacred city of Cusco one of the cleanest in Peru, the mayor wanted to find out if that was true. He invited Luke Naeher, an environmental scientist at the University of Georgia, and a team of UGA students to investigate exactly how fresh the city’s air is.

“On first impression, Cusco is a remarkably beautiful city,” said John Pearce, a graduate student who was part of the research team. Like many developing countries, Peru lacks the necessary equipment to conduct adequate research about air pollution.

In summer 2005, Naeher and four UGA students spent four weeks measuring residential, community and street-level air pollution in Cusco. Naeher and Manuel Aguilar Villalobos from Environmental Air Association, Lima-Peru, directed the project in conjunction with Cusco’s City Hall and Cusco’s department of health and transportation.

In one study, students monitored air pollution in areas of the city congested with traffic and pedestrians during the morning and evening rush hours. In a second study, the research team discovered high levels of pollution in homes where many women cook over open fires fueled by wood and occasionally even plastics composed of toxic chemicals. Since houses in Cusco are closed places, residents’ exposure to hazardous chemicals is increased.

But residents are not the only people affected by pollution in the city. Each year 800,000 tourists climb Peru’s tall mountains, where the air is thin, to visit the ancient Incan ruins of Machu Picchu. If the air is not clean, they become more likely to develop respiratory problems.

The research done by the UGA team will help Cusco’s government develop health policies and regulations that will benefit the city’s population and its economy, which depends mainly on tourism. If the right measures are taken to control pollution, the sacred city of Cusco will continue to be a breath of fresh air for Peruvians and tourists alike.

Claudia Caycho

This project was funded in part by an IDEAS grant. John Pearce presented his findings at the Society of Exposure Analysis 2006 International Conference and won first place in the student poster competition.

Tags: Health, Peru, Pollution, Study Abroad, Winter 2007