Health assessment and mitigating solutions to heat-pollution induced by urban traffic

Abstract

In the context of global warming, urban heat island (UHI) effect is increasing with the rapid urbanization. As a major driver of urbanization, urban transportation sector emits tremendous heat, which intensifies the UHI and further increases the health risks. Meanwhile, under the impact of UHI, emissions of nitrogen oxides and other gases react to generate tropospheric ozone and other harmful pollutants, further degrading urban air quality and posing immense health threats. Therefore, real-time assessment of urban traffic related heat and pollution coupled health risks are imperative, further providing reasonable suggestions of mitigation measures. This study aims to develop a coupled hazard-vulnerability-exposure framework to obtain the hourly spatiotemporal patterns and real-time zoning of health risks from urban traffic. Four districts in Suzhou city are selected as study area, including Wu Zhong, Hu Qiu, Gu Su, and Xiang Cheng districts. Targeted risk alleviation strategies are proposed by reducing vulnerabilities based on blue and green infrastructures, medical infrastructures, and real time shade. Results showed that two peak risk hours were 11:00 and 15:00, with high risks of 49.1% across the study area. Peak risks in central zones were 1.8 times of those in peripheral regions. Medical infrastructure had the largest influence on vulnerability mitigation, followed by green infrastructure. The impact of real-time shading on reducing health hazards substantially increased during sunrise and sunset periods, thus the shading structures or tall trees within traffic zones can be augmented. This work can provide insights into developing urban health risk management and regulation strategies.