scholarly journals Remote-Working Carbon-Saving Footprint: Could COVID-19 Pandemic Establish a New Working Model with Positive Environmental Health Implications?

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 117863022110135
Author(s):  
Sotirios Maipas ◽  
Ioannis G Panayiotides ◽  
Nikolaos Kavantzas
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Health ◽  
Electric Vehicles ◽  
Urban Air Pollution ◽  
Green Spaces ◽  
Worth Living ◽  
Health Implications ◽  
Urban Green Spaces ◽  
Working Model ◽  
Environmental Deterioration ◽  
Polycyclic Aromatic

Urban air pollution is a major problem with known negative health implications, such as respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Lockdown measures have caused the reductions of various urban pollutants, such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2), particulate matters (PMs), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). COVID-19 pandemic has also established remote-working as an antidote to declining economic activity due to lockdown measures. The environmental health implications of the new hybrid-working model, which drastically reduces the number of circulating vehicles, appear to be positive enough to reveal an emerging opportunity. Since this hybrid model may have started becoming a widely accepted working model, the current situation has revealed the opportunity of remote-working arrangements to serve as a supplementary mitigative and adaptive measure against urban environmental deterioration. Also, a remote-working carbon-saving footprint may be introduced in order to evaluate a firm’s carbon footprint reduction due to remote-working arrangements. These workings arrangements may be accompanied by improvements and expansions of urban green spaces and with broader use of electric vehicles, transforming our cities into more sustainable, safe, healthy, and worth-living environments.

Effect of Urban Pollutants on Physiological and Biochemical Parameters of Leaves of Hardwood Trees and Shrubs in Urban Green Spaces

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-98
Author(s):  
Sara Ghafari ◽  
Behzad Kaviani ◽  
Shahram Sedaghathoor ◽  
Mohammad Sadegh Allahyari
Keyword(s):  
Air Pollution ◽  
Electrolyte Leakage ◽  
Urban Air Pollution ◽  
Biological Indicators ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Green Spaces ◽  
Urban Green Spaces ◽  
Hardwood Trees ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Trees And Shrubs

Trees and shrubs of green spaces can tolerate some physiological parameters. They can adapt to climatic conditions, hence, reduce air pollution and can be used as biological indicators in various researches. The present study aimed to explore the impact of urban air pollution on some parameters such as fresh, dry and turgor weight, amounts of chlorophyll and carotenoid pigments, and electrolyte leakage of 18 ornamental tree and shrub species in marginal and downtown parks of Rasht, Iran. The results revealed significant differences in turgor weight, photosynthetic pigments, and chlorophyll a/b ratio, but insignificant differences in electrolyte leakage between the marginal and downtown sites. The results indicated that all quantitative variables of the leaves differed significantly (p ≤ 0.01) among the species, except for fresh weight.

scholarly journals Beyond the obvious: Environmental health implications of polar polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons

2019 ◽  
Vol 123 ◽  
pp. 543-557 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oluyoye Idowu ◽  
Kirk T. Semple ◽  
Kavitha Ramadass ◽  
Wayne O'Connor ◽  
Phil Hansbro ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons ◽  
Environmental Health ◽  
Aromatic Hydrocarbons ◽  
Health Implications ◽  
Polycyclic Aromatic

scholarly journals The Socioeconomic Welfare of Urban Green Areas and Parks; A Literature Review of Available Evidence

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 7863
Author(s):  
Antonios Kolimenakis ◽  
Alexandra D. Solomou ◽  
Nikolaos Proutsos ◽  
Evangelia V. Avramidou ◽  
Evangelia Korakaki ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Urban Policy ◽  
Green Spaces ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Natural Environments ◽  
Exclusion Criteria ◽  
Urban Green ◽  
Urban Green Spaces ◽  
Urban Green Areas ◽  
Green Areas

Urban green areas present a lucid example for the harmonious co-existence of the artificial and natural environments best illustrated by their interdependence and interconnection in urban spaces. Urban green areas are essential for the health and wellbeing of citizens. The present study aimed to investigate those multiple benefits for citizens that arise through the existence of urban green areas, as well as important policy dimensions that should be considered when designing the expansion of urban green spaces in urban development. The study was based on a literature review to examine for available evidence on the benefit levels derived by the existence of urban green areas. An extended literature review was followed by a structured review, based on specific inclusion and exclusion criteria, which partly followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. The search was conducted in two databases, and a total of 1674 articles and abstracts were identified through the database searches. After removing 114 duplicates, 1560 records were initially screened based on title and abstract. Following inclusion and exclusion criteria, 14 articles were incorporated in the structured review and a total of 47 in the extended review. The extended literature review identified 33 additional articles examining aspects of benefits that did not fall under the pre-established inclusion and exclusion criteria used in the structured review, such as health benefits and other social parameters associated with urban green spaces. The selected studies were allocated in five principal groups according to study types: three of the them consisted of studies employing “willingness to pay” (WTP) methods, five were based on property values, two studies assigned monetary values, while another two assigned CO2 values, and, finally, two studies were based on qualitative criteria. The results indicated benefits to citizens and increased welfare levels gained by the existence of urban green areas. The conducted review revealed a number of findings and recommendations that could direct future research and urban policy. Those hints could assist local authorities as well as stakeholders in order to measure and assess the benefits of green spaces and urban parks and promote measures and programs to assist their further deployment.

Social inequalities in the associations between urban green spaces, self-perceived health and mortality in Brussels: Results from a census-based cohort study

2021 ◽  
Vol 70 ◽  
pp. 102603
Author(s):  
Lucía Rodriguez-Loureiro ◽  
Lidia Casas ◽  
Mariska Bauwelinck ◽  
Wouter Lefebvre ◽  
Charlotte Vanpoucke ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cohort Study ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Perceived Health ◽  
Green Spaces ◽  
Urban Green ◽  
Urban Green Spaces ◽  
Health And Mortality

scholarly journals Mapping Public Urban Green Spaces Based on OpenStreetMap and Sentinel-2 Imagery Using Belief Functions

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 251
Author(s):  
Christina Ludwig ◽  
Robert Hecht ◽  
Sven Lautenbach ◽  
Martin Schorcht ◽  
Alexander Zipf
Keyword(s):  
Vegetation Index ◽  
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Green Spaces ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Urban Green ◽  
Urban Green Spaces ◽  
Urban Quality Of Life ◽  
Shafer Theory ◽  
Sentinel 2

Public urban green spaces are important for the urban quality of life. Still, comprehensive open data sets on urban green spaces are not available for most cities. As open and globally available data sets, the potential of Sentinel-2 satellite imagery and OpenStreetMap (OSM) data for urban green space mapping is high but limited due to their respective uncertainties. Sentinel-2 imagery cannot distinguish public from private green spaces and its spatial resolution of 10 m fails to capture fine-grained urban structures, while in OSM green spaces are not mapped consistently and with the same level of completeness everywhere. To address these limitations, we propose to fuse these data sets under explicit consideration of their uncertainties. The Sentinel-2 derived Normalized Difference Vegetation Index was fused with OSM data using the Dempster–Shafer theory to enhance the detection of small vegetated areas. The distinction between public and private green spaces was achieved using a Bayesian hierarchical model and OSM data. The analysis was performed based on land use parcels derived from OSM data and tested for the city of Dresden, Germany. The overall accuracy of the final map of public urban green spaces was 95% and was mainly influenced by the uncertainty of the public accessibility model.

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