Research on air pollution characteristics and planning strategy of urban street environment

Abstract

Dense buildings in modern cities make street pollutants more and more difficult to disperse, and the exposure level of urban residents to pollutants has increased significantly. This study focuses on the spatial and temporal distribution of ambient air pollution in urban streets and the relationship between street morphology and pollutant dispersion, and explores ways to reduce ambient air pollution in streets through spatial design. The study used the CityGrid urban grid data monitoring station to conduct an empirical study on an urban trunk road in Wuhan during the winter of 2020 to 2021, monitoring pollutants including NO2, O3, PM2.5, and PM10. The results showed that pollutant concentration changes in the near-road environment are affected by a combination of meteorological elements and traffic flow characteristics. The wind parallel to the road is more favorable to evacuate pollutants inside the street canyon, and the ambient wind above the canyon perpendicular to the road causes vortices in the canyon that cause gaseous pollutants to accumulate on the leeward side of the canyon. The distribution of particulate pollutants is mainly related to the distance of road pollutant sources. Building access ventilation can effectively evacuate street pollutants, and NO2 and O3 decay to stable levels in shorter distance from the road than PM2.5 and PM10 in downwind direction. The future urban street planning can effectively alleviate street pollution levels through strategies such as street canyon morphology control, green landscape facilities arrangement, increasing the building interface opening, and building bottom overhead.