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LUST (lebenswerte und umweltgerechte Stadt) ist ein interdisziplinäres Projekt der Fachbereiche Architektur, Maschinenbau und Verfahrenstechnik sowie Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaften der Hochschule Düsseldorf. Mittelpunkt des Projektes ist die fachübergreifende Entwicklung neuer Konzepte für eine lebenswerte und umweltgerechte Stadt. Es wurde gefördert vom Land Nordrhein-Westfalen im Rahmen des Programms „FH Struktur“.
Abstract. Urban air quality and human health are among the key aspects of future urban planning. In order to address pollutants such as ozone and particulate matter, efforts need to be made to quantify and reduce their concentrations. One important aspect in understanding urban air quality is the influence of urban vegetation which may act as both emitter and sink for trace gases and aerosol particles. In this context, the "Berlin Air quality and Ecosystem Research: Local and long-range Impact of anthropogenic and Natural hydrocarbons 2014" (BAERLIN2014) campaign was conducted between 2 June and 29 August in the metropolitan area of Berlin and Brandenburg, Germany. The predominant goals of the campaign were (1) the characterization of urban gaseous and particulate pollution and its attribution to anthropogenic and natural sources in the region of interest, especially considering the connection between biogenic volatile organic compounds and particulates and ozone; (2) the quantification of the impact of urban vegetation on organic trace gas levels and the presence of oxidants such as ozone; and (3) to explain the local heterogeneity of pollutants by defining the distribution of sources and sinks relevant for the interpretation of model simulations. In order to do so, the campaign included stationary measurements at urban background station and mobile observations carried out from bicycle, van and airborne platforms. This paper provides an overview of the mobile measurements (Mobile BAERLIN2014) and general conclusions drawn from the analysis. Bicycle measurements showed micro-scale variations of temperature and particulate matter, displaying a substantial reduction of mean temperatures and particulate levels in the proximity of vegetated areas compared to typical urban residential area (background) measurements. Van measurements extended the area covered by bicycle observations and included continuous measurements of O3, NOx, CO, CO2 and point-wise measurement of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) at representative sites for traffic- and vegetation-affected sites. The quantification displayed notable horizontal heterogeneity of the short-lived gases and particle number concentrations. For example, baseline concentrations of the traffic-related chemical species CO and NO varied on average by up to ±22.2 and ±63.5 %, respectively, on the scale of 100 m around any measurement location. Airborne observations revealed the dominant source of elevated urban particulate number and mass concentrations being local, i.e., not being caused by long-range transport. Surface-based observations related these two parameters predominantly to traffic sources. Vegetated areas lowered the pollutant concentrations substantially with ozone being reduced most by coniferous forests, which is most likely caused by their reactive biogenic VOC emissions. With respect to the overall potential to reduce air pollutant levels, forests were found to result in the largest decrease, followed by parks and facilities for sports and leisure. Surface temperature was generally 0.6–2.1 °C lower in vegetated regions, which in turn will have an impact on tropospheric chemical processes. Based on our findings, effective future mitigation activities to provide a more sustainable and healthier urban environment should focus predominantly on reducing fossil-fuel emissions from traffic as well as on increasing vegetated areas.
BACKGROUND AND AIM [|] Due to their small size, ultrafine particles (UFP≤100nm) can reach deeply into the lungs and could exert higher toxicity on the body organs in comparison with fine particulate matter. Only ten epidemiological studies examined long-term UFP exposure and health effects according to the most recent review from 2019 that included studies until 2017. We systematically reviewed the literature on health effects of long-term exposure to UFP. METHOD [|] Epidemiological studies were searched comprehensively in PubMed and LUDOK (the Swiss literature database on air pollution and health) from January 2017 to September 2023. Original epidemiologic studies were included if they reported on the general or sub-populations, assessed long-term exposure of UFP measures, investigated clinical or preclinical health outcomes and reported a quantifiable measure of association. Internal validity of studies was evaluated with a risk of bias instrument. The project is funded by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conversation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection and supervised by the German Environment Agency (FKZ 3721 61 202 0). RESULTS [|] We identified 53 original studies investigating long-term associations. The vast majority were cohort studies (79.2%) conducted in the general population (62.3%). Half (54.7%) were located in western Europe. UFP was measured and modelled in various ways; more than a third of the studies (41.5%) used land-use regression models. Thirty studies adjusted for at least one co-pollutant. Most identified outcomes were cardiometabolic (43.4%), respiratory (13.2%) and birth outcomes (13.2%). Positive associations with long-term UFP exposure were reported for cardiometabolic, respiratory and birth outcomes for 78.5%, 42.9% and 50.0% of studies, respectively. CONCLUSIONS [|] The evidence base has increased substantially since the publication of the 2019 review. Positive associations were reported, in particular for cardiometabolic outcomes.
High ambient air concentrations of fine particulate matter are a problem in many European cities, especially in traffic loaded street canyons. Therefore, the introduction of traffic restricted or traffic reduced areas is discussed as a countermeasure in several towns. However, at that point it is not always clear, in what extent the restriction of traffic in presently overloaded streets causes the exceeding of limit values in other areas of the town after the redirection of the traffic. Presently this cannot be recorded appropriately, when the concentrations of fine particulate matter are monitored only at rarely distributed single points by the official measurement systems of the environmental state agencies.
On the other hand, meanwhile there are low cost and mid cost sensors for the measurement of fine particulate matter available, which enable the parallel monitoring with many measurement systems in an extended area of the town. By this way, the effect of traffic restrictions on the distribution of fine particulate matter in the city can potentially be observed. However, at this point the question arises, how reliable the results are, which are delivered by the low and mid cost sensors for fine particulate matter. For this reason different low cost and mid cost sensors have been evaluated for this study and intercompared with certified reference measurement systems for fine particulate matter. The study comprised the sensors SDS011 (Nova Fitness), which is in use already for several citizen science projects in Germany, SPS30 (Sensirion), OPC-R1 (Alphasense), OPC-N2 (Alphasense) and OPC-N3 (Alphasense).
This study was performed at urban sites in Düsseldorf (Germany) for several weeks and covered different traffic loads and different meteorological situations, in order to get representative results. As atmospheric humidity can influence the measurement results, the humidity was measured in parallel to the fine particulate matter. It could be shown that the validity of the measurement results of fine particulate matter could be improved, when the parallel readings of the humidity were taken into account.