Air Quality and Urban Sustainable Development- Current Issues and Future Directions
摘要
Air quality and urban sustainability are highly interrelated themes, have overarching impacts on public health, environmental quality, resource fulfillment and social justice. Understanding the inter-relationships of air quality with urban sustainable development is crucial in framing runs further. Urban areas are growing fast worldwide, and the quality of urban air is one key issue in city residents’ health, well-being and economy. To design effective policies and interventions to ensure clean air, mitigate pollution, attain improved public health outcomes and derive sustainable urban growth it is critical for us to comprehend at least some of this intricate nexus between the complexity around AQ and UD. The complexity of causes that leads to the degradation in air quality in urban areas, is visible when we look at a casting among those factors related with such an environmental problem as urban pollution. Urban air pollution comes from a variety of sources both man-made and natural, including emissions from industrial facilities, vehicular traffic, residential heating, construction activities (roads or commercial building etc.) These emissions contribute to the release of a number of pollutants, including particulate matter (PM), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur dioxide (SO2), volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and ozone (O3). The spatial and temporal distributions of air pollutants in cities are determined by a number of factors including the meteorological conditions, topography as well as distance to pollution sources thus leading to differences over space and time. The impacts of urban air pollution on health are diverse but considerable, with cardio-pulmonary and neurological implications including special effects in conditions such as heart disease, asthma and lung cancer. This is especially dangerous for vulnerable populations (children, the elderly and those with pre-existing health conditions). Comprehensive solutions that address the sources of pollution, improve monitoring and management of air quality across all sectors will be needed to tackle these urgent issues as well control (urban development) geared towards human health and a healthier environment.