engleski

Determining alternative futures, urban development effects on air quality

The structure and design of urban developments can have significant adverse effects on pollutant emissions as well as other ecological factors. When considering the future impact of growth on mobile source emissions, we generally scale the increase in vehicle kilometers traveled (VKT) on population growth. However, diverse and poorly planned urban development (i.e., urban sprawl) can force higher rates of motor vehicle use and in return increase levels of pollutant emissions than alternative land-use scenarios. The objective of this study is to develop and implement an air quality assessment tool that takes into account the influence of alternative growth and development scenarios. We introduce the development of an advanced interactive scenario-based land use and atmospheric chemistry modeling system coupled with a GIS (Geographical Information System) framework. The modeling system is designed to be modular and includes land use/land cover information, transportation, meteorological, emissions, and photochemical modeling components. To investigate the impact of possible land use change and urbanization, we evaluated a set of alternative future patterns of land use developed for the southwestern region of California. Four land use and two population variants (increases of 500K and 1M) were considered. Overall the Regional Low-Density Future was seen to have the highest pollutant emissions, largest increase in VKT, and the greatest impact on air quality. On the other hand, the Three-Centers Future appeared to be the most beneficial alternative future in terms of air quality. For all cases, the increase in population was the main factor leading to the change on predicted pollutant levels.

air quality assessment; development scenarios

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