Do Compactness and Poly-Centricity Mitigate PM10 Emissions? Evidence from Yangtze River Delta Area.

Jing Tao,Ying Wang,Rong Wang,Chuanmin Mi

doi:10.3390/ijerph16214204

Abstract

The Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region is one of the most densely populated and economically developed areas in China, which provides an ideal environment with which to study the various strategies, such as compact and polycentric development advocated by researchers to reduce air pollution. Using the data of YRD cities from 2011–2017, the spatial durbin model (SDM) is presented to investigate how compactness (in terms of urban density, jobs-housing balance, and urban centralization) and poly-centricity (in terms of the number of centers and polycentric cluster) affect PM10 emissions. After controlling some variables, the results suggest that more jobs-housing-balanced and centralized compactness tends to decrease emissions, while poly-centricity by developing too many centers is expected to result in more pollutant emissions. The effect of high-density compactness is more controversial. In addition, for cities with more private car ownerships (>10 million within cities), enhancing the polycentric cluster by achieving a more balanced population distribution between the traditional centers and sub-centers could reduce emissions, whereas this mitigated emissions effect may be limited. The difference between our study and western studies suggests that the correlation between high-density compactness and air pollution vary with the specific characteristics and with spatial planning implications, as this paper concludes.

Highlights

The rapid urbanization and urban expansion have already undermined environmental improvement efforts, in many urban areas across China where air pollutant emissions are increasing [1,2,3,4]
Spatial Durbin Model (SDM) Results for PM10 In Table 5, the results indicate that the spatial coefficients of compactness and poly-centricity in Models
The indirect and total effects of PO have a significant-positive effect on an increase in PM10 emissions, which indicates that the poor air quality of PM10 originates from the larger size of its neighboring and whole area

Summary

Introduction

The rapid urbanization and urban expansion have already undermined environmental improvement efforts, in many urban areas across China where air pollutant emissions are increasing [1,2,3,4]. The Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) has required an air quality monitoring network that consists of 1436 monitoring stations in all prefecture-level cities since 2015, and these monitoring stations have begun to record hourly data for air pollutant emissions [5]. It is not difficult to identify major factors that lead to an increase in air pollution emissions by the urban transport sector. Urban road networks carrying an increasingly large number of vehicles lead to an increasingly large amount of transport-related pollutant emissions to air, with the problem exacerbated by traffic congestion [9]

Results

Discussion

Conclusion