Improving Urban Air Quality: is green infrastructure enough?

PICONE, NATASHA

Glasgow

Exposición; Thesis Show - MURCS 2023; 2023

Glasgow Caledonian University

Air Quality in cities is key for population health. Cities concentrate the 55 % of global population and 80 % of it is exposure to poor air quality. In this sense there are two ways to improve urban air quality: direct ones related to tacle the pollutants concetrations using reduction of emission; and inderect ones that inhance the depositions surfaces or increase the turbulence, in which the green infrastructure is included. This works shows the impacts of implementing green infranture in dense build areas (LCZ 2). The result show that in this typology of build-up areas the green walls are the ones that generate an improvement of conditions. On the contrary, incorporating trees and particularly evergreen, deteriorate the air quality for pedestrians. This reinforce the idea of erradicating vehicule circulation in really narrow urban canyons, as the only solutions to improve the air quality.