Abstract
With the acceleration of urbanisation and industrialisation, atmospheric particulate pollution has become one of the most serious environmental problems in China. In this study, green spaces in Baoji city were classified into different patterns on the basis of vegetation structural parameters, i.e., horizontal structure, vertical structure and vegetation type. Eleven types of green space with different structures were selected for investigating the relationships between atmospheric particulate matter (PM) concentration and green spaces with different vegetation structure, based on the “matrix effect” of environmental factors, i.e., location, time, wind velocity, temperature, humidity and area to the concentration of PM2.5 and PM10 in the green spaces. The results showed that: (1) Location, time, wind velocity, temperature and humidity had highly significant effects on the concentration of PM2.5 and PM10. In sunny and breeze weather conditions, PM2.5 and PM10 concentration increased with the wind velocity and humidity, and decreased with the temperature. The range of PM10 concentration was greater than the range of PM2.5 concentration. (2) Less than 2 hectares of the green space had no significant influence on the concentration of PM2.5 and PM10. (3) The concentration of PM2.5 and PM10 showed no significant difference between all the green spaces and the control group. There was no significant difference in the reduction of PM2.5 concentration between different structural green spaces, but there was a significant difference in the reduction of PM10 concentration. The above results will provide a theoretical basis and practical methods for the optimisation of urban green space structures for improving urban air quality effectively in the future.
Highlights
With the rapid development of urbanisation and industry in China and the increase of the per capita holdings of vehicles, the pollution of atmospheric particulate matter has become one of the most serious problems that cannot be neglected in today’s society [1,2]
The statistical results showed that the location, testing-time, wind velocity, temperature and humidity had highly significant influences on particulate matter concentration (p = 0.000), while the area of the site had no significant influence on PM2.5 (p = 0.983) and PM10 (p = 0.126) concentration, and the same for the vegetation structure and PM2.5 (p = 0.500); vegetation structure had a highly significant effect on PM10 concentration (p = 0.002) (Table 3)
There was no significant difference in the reduction of PM2.5 concentration in different vegetation structures in green spaces, while there were significant differences in PM10 concentration
Summary
With the rapid development of urbanisation and industry in China and the increase of the per capita holdings of vehicles, the pollution of atmospheric particulate matter has become one of the most serious problems that cannot be neglected in today’s society [1,2]. PM10 is one of the primary pollutants that affect air quality and damages human health through the respiratory tract [3]. In the 74 leading cities of China, approximately 32% of the reported deaths, with a mortality rate of 1.9%, were associated with PM2.5 and PM10 in 2013, in which deaths from cardiovascular, respiratory and lung-cancer causes accounted. Atmosphere 2018, 9, 332 for 20% of the reported deaths, with a mortality rate of 1.2% [3]. Air pollution control is urgently needed in China
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