The resource-climatic potential of urbanized territories (a case study of the city of Irkutsk)

Abstract

A combination of average conditions for the diffusion of pollutants in the city of Irkutsk and significant volumes of emissions are the chief cause of a very high air pollution index during a long (longer than 20 years) period. In current conditions, the influence of the climate/atmosphere of the city of Irkutsk on the living conditions of the population implies an exceedance of hygiene standards in a year, on the average, for 5–6 pollutants. Furthermore, the composition and concentrations of pollutants are changing but the concentration of suspended material remains stably high (up to 2.4 MPC). Of particular concern is the largest exceedance of MPC for benzo(a)pyrene (up to 7.8 MPC), which is due primarily to a low quality of fuel used by mobile and stationary sources of emissions. The microclimatic characteristics of the city in the winter period were used to identify territories with a different temperature regime. The air temperature in low places is lower by 1.0–3.6 °C than at the Basic Irkutsk Observatory weather station. A large scatter in the deviations is caused by the warming influence of the Angara and by the infrastructural characteristics of the city. On the slopes and in elevated areas in the city center and outskirts, the temperature deviations do not exceed ± 0.5 –2.0 °C, respectively.