Spatial and Socio-Classification of Traffic Pollutant Emissions and Associated Mortality Rates in High-Density Hong Kong via Improved Data Analytic Approaches.

Hugo Wai Leung Mak,Daisy Chiu Yi Ng

doi:10.3390/ijerph18126532

Abstract

Excessive traffic pollutant emissions in high-density cities result in thermal discomfort and are associated with devastating health impacts. In this study, an improved data analytic framework that combines geo-processing techniques, social habits of local citizens like traffic patterns and working schedule and district-wise building morphologies was established to retrieve street-level traffic NOx and PM2.5 emissions in all 18 districts of Hong Kong. The identification of possible human activity regions further visualizes the intersection between emission sources and human mobility. The updated spatial distribution of traffic emission could serve as good indicators for better air quality management, as well as the planning of social infrastructures in the neighborhood environment. Further, geo-processed traffic emission figures can systematically be distributed to respective districts via mathematical means, while the correlations of NOx and mortality within different case studies range from 0.371 to 0.783, while varying from 0.509 to 0.754 for PM2.5, with some assumptions imposed in our study. Outlying districts and good practices of maintaining an environmentally friendly transportation network were also identified and analyzed via statistical means. This newly developed data-driven framework of allocating and quantifying traffic emission could possibly be extended to other dense and heavily polluted cities, with the aim of enhancing health monitoring campaigns and relevant policy implementations.

Highlights

Outdoor air pollution (OAP) has become a global environmental concern in recent decades, where it exerts challenges and pressure on the atmospheric environment, health expenditures and the normal livelihood of cities
The NOx emission figures remained high throughout the year because, at that time, many owners of taxis and minibuses had not adopted the use of cleaner fuels and environmentally friendly devices, while a huge amount of NO2 was emitted whenever the catalytic converters of these veInt
With the application of different geo-processing and gridding techniques, scientific identification of peak hours (PH) and the consideration of urban morphologies, this study has practically quantified the spatial distribution of traffic NOx and PM2.5 emissions within individual streets of Hong Kong, which is one of the most densely populated cities in the world

Summary

Introduction

Outdoor air pollution (OAP) has become a global environmental concern in recent decades, where it exerts challenges and pressure on the atmospheric environment, health expenditures and the normal livelihood of cities. It is one of the leading factors that constitute to 3.4 million premature deaths each year [1]. OAP are often connected with deterioration in health quality, premature mortality and economic recession, especially in high-density cities, with respective assumptions [4,5,6].

Objectives

Results

Conclusion