Effectiveness of green infrastructure for improvement of air quality in urban street canyons.
By T. Pugh, A. MacKenzie, J. Whyatt, C. Hewitt. Environmental Science and Technology, 2012
609 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Street-level concentrations of nitrogen dioxide (NO(2)) and particulate matter (PM) exceed public health standards in many cities, causing increased mortality and morbidity. Concentrations can be reduced by controlling emissions, increasing dispersion, or increasing deposition rates, but little attention has been paid to the latter as a pollution control method. Both NO(2) and PM are deposited onto surfaces at rates that vary according to the nature of the surface; deposition rates to vegetation are much higher than those to hard, built surfaces. Previously, city-scale studies have suggested that deposition to vegetation can make a very modest improvement (<5%) to urban air quality. However, few studies take full account of the interplay between urban form and vegetation, specifically the enhanced residence time of air in street canyons. This study shows that increasing deposition by the planting of vegetation in street canyons can reduce street-level concentrations in those canyons by as much as 40% for NO(2) and 60% for PM. Substantial street-level air quality improvements can be gained through action at the scale of a single street canyon or across city-sized areas of canyons. Moreover, vegetation will continue to offer benefits in the reduction of pollution even if the traffic source is removed from city centers. Thus, judicious use of vegetation can create an efficient urban pollutant filter, yielding rapid and sustained improvements in street-level air quality in dense urban areas.
Subfields: Environmental Engineering, Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis, Speech and Hearing
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3a0fc77061cb295d3f68a0549439de28b7a034a1
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Citations in the corpus
- Green Facades and Living Walls—A Review Establishing the Classification of Construction Types and Mapping the Benefits (2019, background): “[70] showed that “increasing deposition by the planting of vegetation in street canyons can reduce street-level concentrations in those canyons by as much as 40% for NO2 and 60% for PM” (p.”
- Exploring pathways linking greenspace to health: Theoretical and methodological guidance (2017, background): “…reduce dispersion of trafficrelated pollution and therefore may reduce near-road exposure in a similar manner as solid barriers (Vos et al., 2013; Tong et al., 2015), but they may simultaneously increase on-road concentrations (Pugh et al., 2012; Tong et al., 2015, 2016; Salmond et al., 2013).”
- Mitigating and adapting to climate change: multi-functional and multi-scale assessment of green urban infrastructure. (2014, background): “Green walls are even more efficient, potentially reducing NO2 concentrations by up to 40% and PM10 up to 60% in street canyons (Pugh et al., 2012).”
- Green Infrastructure in the Urban Environment: A Systematic Quantitative Review (2019, background): “Improved air quality Camerona et al. 2012 [24]; Norton et al. 2015 [16]; Wang et al. 2014 [31];Pugh et al. 2012 [32]; Jayasooriya et al. 2017 [33]; Chen & Whalley, 2012 [34].”
- Tools for Modeling of Stormwater Management and Economics of Green Infrastructure Practices: a Review (2014, methodology): “Adaptation of different GI practices was studied by researchers, and the methodologies for the quantification of these benefits were identified in a number of different studies (Bass et al. 2002; Gill et al. 2007; Pugh et al. 2012).”
- Integrated valuation of a nature-based solution for water pollution control. Highlighting hidden benefits (2016, background): “…rain gardens, vegetation in street canyons) have demonstrated to be more efficient, cost-effective, adaptable, multi-purpose and longlasting than the so-called ‘grey infrastructure’ alternatives (e.g. Gill et al., 2007; Pugh et al., 2012; Ellis, 2013; Flynn and Traver, 2013; Raje et al., 2013).”
- A machine learning calibration model using random forests to improve sensor performance for lower-cost air quality monitoring (2018, neutral): “However, air pollutant concentrations often exhibit significant spatial variability depending on local sources and features of the built environment (Marshall et al., 2008; Nazelle et al., 2009; Pugh et al., 2012; Tan et al., 2014), which may not be well captured by the existing monitoring networks.”