Identification of the health risk zones of nitrogen oxides in typical industry develop planning

Abstract

It is important to predict the health risk zones in the industry environmental planning (EP) and control it. However, the association between spatial concept in the current health risk assessment (HRA) and the entire environmental impact assessment (EIA) is of shortage, neither theory nor practice. In this study, a typical industrial park with NOx emission was selected. The status of emission sources, together with the sources planned in the development, were investigated. The status of NOx dispersion was profiled spatially by simulation, and some places with high levels of NOx were identified, such as WZ town. Simultaneously, the characteristics of people’s activities based on land-use features were obtained by questionnaire, and the spatial exposure assessment of NOx was expressed in an average daily dose (ADD). The sequence of NOx risk zones associated with practical health risk was proved different from those of the NOx dispersion zones. Furthermore, the identification of both spatial NOx dispersion and the health risk zones was performed. The result suggested that compared with the status of environmental levels, more lands attributed as residential area would be recognized as health risk zones in EP, relating to the land uses. Our findings are of great significance for predicting the spatial NOx health risk in EP, which could help in environmental risk control in the industrial park design.