Urban Pollution

Science and Management

Susanne M. Charlesworth, Colin A. Booth, Susanne M. Charlesworth, Colin A. Booth

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781119260486
• eBook ISBN:
  9781119260509
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencias biológicas
• Subtopic: Ciencia medioambiental

Multidisciplinary treatment of the urgent issues surrounding urban pollution worldwide 

Written by some of the top experts on the subject in the world, this book presents the diverse, complex and current themes of the urban pollution debate across the built environment, urban development and management continuum. It uniquely combines the science of urban pollution with associated policy that seeks to control it, and includes a comprehensive collection of international case studies showing the status of the problem worldwide.

Urban Pollution: Science and Management is a multifaceted collection of chapters that address the contemporary concomitant issues of increasing urban living and associated issues with contamination by offering solutions specifically for the built environment. It covers: the impacts of urban pollution; historical urban pollution; evolution of air quality policy and management in urban areas; ground gases in urban environments; bioaccessibility of trace elements in urban environments; urban wastewater collection, treatment, and disposal; living green roofs; light pollution; river ecology; greywater recycling and reuse; containment of pollution from urban waste disposal sites; bioremediation in urban pollution mitigation; air quality monitoring; urban pollution in China and India; urban planning in sub–Saharan Africa and more. 

• Deals with both the science and the relevant policy and management issues
• Examines the main sources of urban pollution
• Covers both first-world and developing world urban pollution issues
• Integrates the latest scientific research with practical case studies
• Deals with both legacy and emerging pollutants and their effects

The integration of physical and environmental sciences, combined with social, economic and political sciences and the use of case studies makes Urban Pollution: Science and Management an incredibly useful resource for policy experts, scientists, engineers and those interested in the subject.

1
Insights and Issues into the Impacts of Urban Pollution

Colin A. Booth¹ and Susanne M. Charlesworth

¹Architecture and the Built Environment, University of the West of England, , United Kingdom

²Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience, Coventry University, United Kingdom

1.1 Introduction

Urban pollution can be defined as the presence or introduction of contaminant material (solid, liquid, gas) or energy (heat, noise, light, radiation) into the built environment, either directly or indirectly, by natural sources and/or anthropogenic activities, which are likely to have harmful or poisonous effects on people, property, and/or the environment. This encompasses pollution of the air we breathe, pollution of the water we drink, pollution of the soil that grows the food we eat, pollution of plants we are reliant upon to perform photosynthesis, pollution of the buildings we live and work in and, ultimately, pollution that changes our weather/climatic systems.

Pollution events occur every day as a result of spills, accidents, negligence, or vandalism (Environment Agency, 2013). However, the effects can be devastating and long‐lasting for both humans and the environment (e.g. radiation exposure from Chernobyl, Ukraine). Typically, some of the worst places to suffer from pollution are towns and cities (Table 1.1). Poor air quality is prevalent many days of the year in many cities around the world. For instance, Marylebone Road is a major arterial route (A501) for traffic and pedestrians in the City of Westminster, Central London, where the roadside buildings create an asymmetric street canyon with a height‐to‐width ratio of ~0.8 (Charron et al., 2007) and, as a consequence the area has consistently high daily mean PM₁₀ level that regularly exceeded the EU (1993/30/EC) Air Quality Directive (47 incidents in 2007; 29 in 2008; 36 in 2009; 15 in 2010; 34 in 2011; and 27 in 2012). These exceedances are attributed to high traffic flows, congestion, and vehicle combustion particulates (AQEG, 2005; Crosby et al., 2014).

Table 1.1 The world’s ten most polluted cities.

	City/country	Type of pollution
1.	Linfen, China	Coal
2.	Tianying, China	Heavy metals
3.	Sukinda, India	Hexavalent chromium
4.	Vapi, India	Chemicals and metals
5.	La Oroya, Peru	Sulphur dioxide, lead, copper, and zinc
6.	Dzerzhinsk, Russia	Chemicals and toxic by‐products, such as sarin and VX gas
7.	Norilsk, Russia	Air pollution, such as particulates and sulphur dioxide
8.	Chernobyl, Ukraine	Radiation
9.	Sumgayit, Azerbaijan	Organic chemicals, heavy metals, and oil
10.	Kabwe, Zambia	Cadmium and lead

Derived from http://www.blacksmithinstitute.org/

As much as 54% of the total global population was estimated to live in urban areas in 2014, which represents an increase of 20% since 1960, and this percentage is expected to grow to 66% by 2050, adding a further 2.5 billion people to urban populations (United Nations, 2014). Many cities are expanding at rates that exceed their capacity to accommodate their growing populations. This means some cities are experiencing a growth of informal settlements on their periphery where they lack services and infrastructure. The density of cities increases the chance that one source of pollution will affect a great many people (WHO, 2016a).

Intensive urbanisation brings with it increased pollution from a variety of sources including industry, traffic, domestic heating, coal and oil combustion, incineration, construction activities, road weathering, and maintenance activities such as street sweeping and gully emptying. Inevitably, this leads to increased release of polluted particulates, dissolved contaminants, nutrients, new and emerging pollutants (such as hormones and personal care products), as well as inhalable and respirable particles, among others.

Air pollution is a major risk for many people, as it can cause cardiovascular diseases, strokes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer, and acute respiratory infections. Moreover, an estimated 3.0 million deaths in 2012 were caused by exposure to outdoor pollution, specifically ambient air pollution, and an estimated 4.3 million deaths were caused by household air pollution. These mortality rates vary regionally – with Georgia, North Korea, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Albania, China, and Sierra Leone among the highest per 100,000 of their population (WHO, 2016b).

Most global cities lack adequate wastewater management, such that unsafe water, sanitation, and hygiene were responsible for an estimated 871,000 deaths in 2012. Most of these deaths were linked to diarrhoeal diseases, together with malnutrition, intestinal nematode infections, and schistosomiasis, caused mainly by contamination of drinking water, waterbodies, and soil. Sanitation for urban populations in the world’s least developed regions is limited. As a consequence, mortality rates are greatest in Africa – with Angola, Congo, Somalia, Chad, Sierra Leone, Niger, and Burundi among the highest per 100,000 of their population (WHO, 2016b).

With urban pollution being responsible for so many deaths annually, and with an estimated one in every three people expected to be living in cities with at least half a million inhabitants by 2030 (United Nations Human Settlements Programme, 2016), there is a pressing need to explore, understand, expose, and address pollution sources, pathways, and receptors in the urban setting and identify how best to manage and police the issues and impacts associated with them. The next section provides some notable examples of urban pollution that have taught some harsh lessons enabling changes to be made in management and policy.

1.2 Examples of Urban Pollution

There has been a plethora of pollution disasters around the world that have diseased populations, infected landscapes, and contaminated resources above and below ground. As a means of introducing the severity of urban pollution around the world, detailed in the following is an array of examples where air pollution, water pollution, and soil pollution has been devastating and long‐lasting for those affected.

1.2.1 Air Pollution in London, United Kingdom

Air quality in towns and cities has been a global problem for many centuries (Brimblecombe, 1998). One of the most widely reported examples of urban air pollution is the ‘Great Smog’ of London. On 4 December 1952, an anticyclone descended over a windless London, causing a temperature inversion with cold, stagnant air trapped under a layer of warm air. The period of cold weather meant the residents of London burned more coal than usual so they ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• List of Contributors
• 1 Insights and Issues into the Impacts of Urban Pollution
• 2 Historical Urban Pollution
• 3 Evolution of Air Quality Policy and Management in Urban Areas
• 4 UK and EU Water Policy as an Instrument of Urban Pollution
• 5 Soil Quality and Policy
• 6 Ground Gases in Urban Environments – Sources and Solutions
• 7 Insights and Issues of Trace Elements Found in Street and Road Dusts
• 8 Bioaccessibility of Trace Elements in Urban Environments
• 9 The Necessity for Urban Wastewater Collection, Treatment, and Disposal
• 10 Living Green Roofs
• 11 Light Pollution
• 12 The Role of Forensic Science in the Investigation and Control of Urban Pollution
• 13 River Ecology and Urban Pollution
• 14 Urban Meadows on Brownfield Land
• 15 Urban Pollution and Ecosystem Services
• 16 Greywater Recycling and Reuse
• 17 Containment of Pollution from Urban Waste Disposal Sites
• 18 Mitigating Urban Pollution through Innovative Use of Construction Materials
• 19 Application of Zeolites to Environmental Remediation
• 20 Bioremediation in Urban Pollution Mitigation: Theoretical Background and Applications to Groundwaters
• 21 Bioremediation in Urban Pollution Mitigation: Applications to Solid Media
• 22 Use of Environmental Management Systems to Mitigate Urban Pollution
• 23 Role of Citizen Science in Air Quality Monitoring
• 24 Unique Environmental Regulatory Framework Streamlines Clean‐Up and Encourages Urban Redevelopment in Massachusetts, United States
• 25 Urban Pollution in China
• 26 Urban Pollution in India
• 27 Urban Aquatic Pollution in Brazil
• 28 Potentially Toxic Metal‐Bearing Phases in Urban Dust and Suspended Particulate Matter: The Case of Budapest, Hungary
• 29 The Role of Urban Planning in Sub‐Saharan Africa Urban Pollution Management
• 30 Water Pollution and Urbanisation Trends in Lebanon: Litani River Basin Case Study
• 31 Closing Comments on Urban Pollution
• Index
• End User License Agreement