Air Pollution and Migration in European Cities

Today, the design and remodeling of urban environments is being sought in order to achieve green, healthy, and sustainable cities. The effect of air pollution in cities due to vehicle combustion gases is an important part of the problem. Due to the indirect effect caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, political powers in Europe have imposed confinement measures for citizens by imposing movement restrictions in large cities. This indirect measure has given us a laboratory to show how the reduction in vehicle circulation affects in a short time the levels of air pollution in cities. Therefore, this article analyzes the effect in different European cities such as Milan, Prague, Madrid, Paris, and London. These cities have been chosen due to their large amount of daily road traffic that generates high levels of pollution; therefore, it can clearly show the fall in these pollutants in the air in the analyzed period. The results shown through this study indicate that the reduction in combustion vehicles greatly affects the levels of pollution in different cities. In these periods of confinement, there was an improvement in air quality where pollutant values dropped to 80% compared to the previous year. This should serve to raise awareness among citizens and political powers to adopt measures that induce sustainable transport systems.

Environmental regulation, economic development and air pollution in the cities of China: Spatial econometric analysis based on policy scoring and satellite data

This paper uses the panel data of 275 prefecture-level cities in China in 2003–2019 and spatial Durbin model to verify the impact of environmental regulation and industrial agglomeration on air pollution. This paper finds that the enforcement intensity of environmental regulations (ER) is not consistent among cities. The effects of strict ER on air pollution in local city are the inverted-U-shape curve. The effects of more stringent ER in adjacent cities j on air pollution in city i are the U-shape curve. The more stringent ER in local city may lead to the decrease in agglomeration of manufacturing sectors (AM), thereby reducing air pollution. The polluting firms may shift production from neighboring cities j with stringent ER to city i with lax ER, thereby leading to the increase in AM, which aggravate air pollution in city i. The more stringent ER in local city i may lead to the increase in agglomeration of productive service industry (AS), thereby reducing air pollution. To avoid the transfer of polluting industrial sectors, the paper suggests that the more stringent implementation of ER should become nationwide actions.

Quantitative evaluation of source interventions for urban air quality improvement - A case study of Delhi city

Nowadays, air pollution in cities with regard to its harmful outcomes has been turned in to one of the serious challenges in urban management. Carbon dioxide emission is one of the most principal factors in the environmental pollution, the world efforts are concentrated to reduce it due to its devastating effects on climatic change and global warming. In the current research, the effective factors on air pollution in Iranian cities were studied, considering CO2 emission level as the pollution index in the period 1993-2013 and for analyze effective factors, econometrics models were applied. The research findings demonstrated, with increase per capita income and Urbanization rate, air pollution, has been increased. Also Study of the effective factors on cities air pollution in Iran showed that per capita oil and natural gas products consumptions have a significant positive effect on CO2 emission while per capita natural gas consumption had a more important effect (4.04% compared to 3.4%). Therefore, important sources of energy in Iran, which oil and natural gas products, were found as the most dominant factors in air pollution. Thus, the necessity of current energy carriers’ replacement by clean energy sources as solar energy and geothermal energy is emphasized.

The pandemic caused by coronavirus COVID-19 is having a worldwide impact that affects health and the economy and indirectly affects air pollution in cities. In Spain, the effect has evolved from being anecdotal in January 2020 to become the second country in Europe with the highest number of cases (614,000 cases by 17/09/2020), which has affected the health system and caused major mobility restrictions. In contrast, COVID-19 has affected air pollution and energy consumption in the country. This article analyzes the indirect effect produced by this pandemic on air pollution, referenced to various stages that occurred in Spain: first stage, without public awareness of COVID-19 impact (mid-January 2020); second is when Spanish Government alerted (late February 2020); and third, after the decree of alarm and mobility restriction of citizens by the government (March 2020) along with the various phases of the de-escalation. The indirect effect produced by this pandemic on air pollution in Spanish cities has been resulted in a decrement of 70% to 80% of average, taking into account dates after the decree of alarm and mobility restriction by the Spanish government (14/03/2020), compared to days prior to that date. Thus, the results of this analysis indicate a significant alteration in air pollutants; these alteration patterns have followed similar paths over different countries worldwide improving the air quality as discussed by Dutheil et al. (Environ Pollut (Barking, Essex: 1987) 263:114466, 2020).

AIR POLLUTION AND CANCER: THE GENAIR STUDY

​ObjectivesThe study aim was to determine whether the range and distribution of all, and proportions of specific, land covers/uses within European cities are associated with city-specific mortality rates.​Setting233 European cities...

Air pollution has caused adverse effects on the climate, the ecological environment and human health, and it has become a major challenge facing the world today. The Yangtze River Delta (YRD) is the region with the most developed economy and the most concentrated population in China. Identifying and quantifying the spatiotemporal characteristics and impact mechanism of air quality in this region would help in formulating effective mitigation policies. Using annual data on the air quality index (AQI) of 39 cities in the YRD from 2015 to 2018, the spatiotemporal regularity of the AQI is meticulously uncovered. Furthermore, a geographically weighted regression (GWR) model is used to qualify the geographical heterogeneity of the effect of different socioeconomic variables on the AQI level. The empirical results show that (1) the urban agglomeration in the YRD presents an air pollution pattern of being low in the northwest and high in the southeast. The spatial correlation of the distribution of the AQI level is verified. The spatiotemporal regularity of the “high clustering club” and the “low clustering club” is obvious. (2) Different socioeconomic factors show obvious geographically heterogeneous effects on the AQI level. Among them, the impact intensity of transportation infrastructure is the largest, and the impact intensity of the openness level is the smallest. (3) The upgrading of the industrial structure improves the air quality status in the northwest more than it does in the southeast. The impact of transportation infrastructure on the air pollution of cities in Zhejiang Province is significantly higher than the impact on the air pollution of other cities. The air quality improvement brought by technological innovation decreases from north to south. With the expansion of urban size, there is a law according to which air quality first deteriorates and then improves. Finally, the government should promote the upgrading of key industries, reasonably control the scale of new construction land, and increase the cultivation of local green innovative enterprises.

BackgroundPrevious studies have found associations between asthma morbidity and air pollution especially in young population, (PLoS One 12:e0180522, 2017; Can J Public Health 103:4-8, 2012; Environ Health Perspect 118:449-57, 2010; Am J Respir Crit Care Med 182:307-16, 2010; J Allergy Clin Immunol 104:717-22, 2008; J Allergy Clin Immunol 104:717-22, 1999; Environ Res 111:1137-47, 2011) but most of them were conducted in areas with relatively low air pollutant level. Moreover, very few studies have investigated the effect and burden modification of heating season during which the ambient air pollution level is significantly different from that during non-heating season in north China.ObjectivesThis study aimed to evaluate the effect and burden modification of heating on short-term associations between adult asthma hospitalizations and ambient air pollution in the north China city of Shijiazhuang.MethodsGeneralized additive models combined with penalized distributed lag nonlinear models were used to model associations between daily asthma hospitalizations and ambient air pollutants from 1 January 2013 to 16 December 2016 in Shijiazhuang city, adjusting for long-term and seasonality trend, day of week, statutory holiday, daily mean air pressure and temperature. Attributable risks were calculated to evaluate the burden of asthma hospitalizations due to air pollutants exposure. The effect of pollutants on hospitalization and the attributable measures were estimated in heating and non-heating season separately and the comparisons between the two seasons were conducted.ResultsAll pollutants demonstrated positive and significant impacts on asthma hospitalizations both in heating season and non-heating season, except for O3 in heating season where a negative association was observed. However, the differences of the pollutant-specific effects between the two seasons were not significant. SO2 and NO2 exposure were associated with the heaviest burden among all pollutants in heating season; meanwhile, PM10 and PM2.5 were associated with the heaviest burden in heating season.ConclusionsIn conclusion, we found evidence of the effect of ambient air pollutants on asthma hospitalizations in Shijiazhuang. The central heating period could modify the effects in terms of attributable risks. The disease burden modification of heating should be taken into consideration when planning intervention measures to reduce the risk of asthma hospitalization.

Air pollution dispersion within urban street canyons

NO 2 but Not PM 2.5 at the Home Address is Associated with Concern over Health Effects of Air Pollution

Abstract. Street-level urban air pollution is a challenging concern for modern urban societies. Pollution dispersion models assume that the concentrations decrease monotonically with raising wind speed. This convenient assumption breaks down when applied to flows with local recirculations such as those found in topographically complex coastal areas. This study looks at a practically important and sufficiently common case of air pollution in a coastal valley city. Here, the observed concentrations are determined by the interaction between large-scale topographically forced and local-scale breeze-like recirculations. Analysis of a long observational dataset in Bergen, Norway, revealed that the most extreme cases of recurring wintertime air pollution episodes were accompanied by increased large-scale wind speeds above the valley. Contrary to the theoretical assumption and intuitive expectations, the maximum NO2 concentrations were not found for the lowest 10 m ERA-Interim wind speeds but in situations with wind speeds of 3 m s−1. To explain this phenomenon, we investigated empirical relationships between the large-scale forcing and the local wind and air quality parameters. We conducted 16 large-eddy simulation (LES) experiments with the Parallelised Large-Eddy Simulation Model (PALM) for atmospheric and oceanic flows. The LES accounted for the realistic relief and coastal configuration as well as for the large-scale forcing and local surface condition heterogeneity in Bergen. They revealed that emerging local breeze-like circulations strongly enhance the urban ventilation and dispersion of the air pollutants in situations with weak large-scale winds. Slightly stronger large-scale winds, however, can counteract these local recirculations, leading to enhanced surface air stagnation. Furthermore, this study looks at the concrete impact of the relative configuration of warmer water bodies in the city and the major transport corridor. We found that a relatively small local water body acted as a barrier for the horizontal transport of air pollutants from the largest street in the valley and along the valley bottom, transporting them vertically instead and hence diluting them. We found that the stable stratification accumulates the street-level pollution from the transport corridor in shallow air pockets near the surface. The polluted air pockets are transported by the local recirculations to other less polluted areas with only slow dilution. This combination of relatively long distance and complex transport paths together with weak dispersion is not sufficiently resolved in classical air pollution models. The findings have important implications for the air quality predictions over urban areas. Any prediction not resolving these, or similar local dynamic features, might not be able to correctly simulate the dispersion of pollutants in cities.

This essay concerns contemporary flows of people, religion and information in relation to the postsecular European city; in general, it deals with the role of religious institutions and practices in the lives of recent arrivals in Western European cities. Ethnographic research among Brazilian migrants in Amsterdam and Barcelona shows that religious networks provide practical information on how to organize life in the city of arrival, and offer collective practices that enhance a sense of belonging. This essay focuses particularly on the role of evangelical Internet applications and sites. It briefly touches upon the political character of religious (virtual) communities in European cities at a time of enhanced polarization between so-called European insiders and outsiders. The chapter explores descriptions of religious organizations by looking closely at members of two evangelical Brazilian churches that deploy the possibilities of Internet applications to reproduce virtual communities alongside face-to-face interactions in the city. Keywords: Brazilian migrants; evangelical Brazilian churches; evangelical internet applications; media; postsecular city; Western European cities

Air quality management from the lens of leveraging social media data and machine learning algorithm for hazard zoning-real-time air pollution detection in urban cities under changing climate.