scholarly journals Escaping from air pollution: The psychological process of domestic migration intention among urban people

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Quan-Hoang Vuong ◽  
Tam-Tri Le ◽  
Nguyen Quang-Loc ◽  
Trung Quang Nguyen ◽  
Minh-Hoang Nguyen

Rapid urbanization with poor city planning has resulted in severe air pollution in low- and middle-income countries’ urban areas. Given the adverse impacts of air pollution, many responses have been taken, including migration to another city. The current study explores the psychological process and demographic predictors of migration intention among urban people in Hanoi, Vietnam – one of the most polluted capital cities in the world. The Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) was used to construct the model and perform Bayesian analysis on a stratified random sampling dataset of 475 urban people. We found that the migration intention was negatively associated with the individual’s satisfaction with air quality. The association was moderated by the perceived availability of a better alternative (or nearby city with better air quality). However, the high migration cost due to geographical distance affected the perceived availability of a better alternative negligible. Moreover, it was also found that male and young people were more likely to migrate, but the brain drain hypothesis was not validated. The results hint that without air pollution mitigation measures, the dislocation of economic forces might occur and hinder sustainable urban development. Therefore, collaborative actions among levels of government, with the semi-conducting principle at heart, are recommended to reduce air pollution.

Author(s):  
Aneri A. Desai

In Indian metropolitan cities, the extensive growth of the motor vehicles has resulted in the deterioration of environmental quality and human health. The concentrations of pollutants at major traffic areas are exceeding the permissible limits. Public are facing severe respiratory diseases and other deadly cardio-vascular diseases In India. Immediate needs for vehicular air pollution monitoring and control strategies for urban cities are necessary. Vehicular emission is the main source of deteriorating the ambient air quality of major Indian cities due to rapid urbanization. Total vehicular population is increased to 15 Lacks as per recorded data of Regional Transport Organization (RTO) till 2014-2015. This study is focused on the assessment of major air pollution parameters responsible for the air pollution due to vehicular emission. The major air pollutants responsible for air pollution due to vehicular emissions are PM10, PM2.5, Sox, Nox, HC, CO2 and CO and Other meterological parameters like Ambient temperature, Humidity, Wind direction and Wind Speed. Sampling and analysis of parameters is carried out according to National Ambient Air Quality Standards Guidelines (NAAQS) (2009) and IS 5128.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 3255-3276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Augustin Colette ◽  
Camilla Andersson ◽  
Astrid Manders ◽  
Kathleen Mar ◽  
Mihaela Mircea ◽  
...  

Abstract. The EURODELTA-Trends multi-model chemistry-transport experiment has been designed to facilitate a better understanding of the evolution of air pollution and its drivers for the period 1990–2010 in Europe. The main objective of the experiment is to assess the efficiency of air pollutant emissions mitigation measures in improving regional-scale air quality. The present paper formulates the main scientific questions and policy issues being addressed by the EURODELTA-Trends modelling experiment with an emphasis on how the design and technical features of the modelling experiment answer these questions. The experiment is designed in three tiers, with increasing degrees of computational demand in order to facilitate the participation of as many modelling teams as possible. The basic experiment consists of simulations for the years 1990, 2000, and 2010. Sensitivity analysis for the same three years using various combinations of (i) anthropogenic emissions, (ii) chemical boundary conditions, and (iii) meteorology complements it. The most demanding tier consists of two complete time series from 1990 to 2010, simulated using either time-varying emissions for corresponding years or constant emissions. Eight chemistry-transport models have contributed with calculation results to at least one experiment tier, and five models have – to date – completed the full set of simulations (and 21-year trend calculations have been performed by four models). The modelling results are publicly available for further use by the scientific community. The main expected outcomes are (i) an evaluation of the models' performances for the three reference years, (ii) an evaluation of the skill of the models in capturing observed air pollution trends for the 1990–2010 time period, (iii) attribution analyses of the respective role of driving factors (e.g. emissions, boundary conditions, meteorology), (iv) a dataset based on a multi-model approach, to provide more robust model results for use in impact studies related to human health, ecosystem, and radiative forcing.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 205630511986765
Author(s):  
Supraja Gurajala ◽  
Suresh Dhaniyala ◽  
Jeanna N. Matthews

Poor air quality is recognized as a major risk factor for human health globally. Critical to addressing this important public-health issue is the effective dissemination of air quality data, information about adverse health effects, and the necessary mitigation measures. However, recent studies have shown that even when public get data on air quality and understand its importance, people do not necessarily take actions to protect their health or exhibit pro-environmental behaviors to address the problem. Most existing studies on public attitude and response to air quality are based on offline studies, with a limited number of survey participants and over a limited number of geographical locations. For a larger survey size and a wider set of locations, we collected Twitter data for a period of nearly 2 years and analyzed these data for three major cities: Paris, London, and New Delhi. We identify the three hashtags in each city that best correlate the frequency of tweets with local air quality. Using tweets with these hashtags, we determined that people’s response to air quality across all three cities was nearly identical when considering relative changes in air pollution. Using machine-learning algorithms, we determined that health concerns dominated public response when air quality degraded, with the strongest increase in concern being in New Delhi, where pollution levels are the highest among the three cities studied. The public call for political solutions when air quality worsens is consistent with similar findings with offline surveys in other cities. We also conducted an unsupervised learning analysis to extract topics from tweets in Delhi and studied their evolution over time and with changing air quality. Our analysis helped extract relevant words or features associated with different air quality–related topics such as air pollution policy and health. Also, the topic modeling analysis revealed niche topics associated with sporadic air quality events, such as fireworks during festivals and the air quality impact on an outdoor sport event. Our approach shows that a tweet-based analysis can enable social scientists to probe and survey public response to events such as air quality in a timely fashion and help policy makers respond appropriately.


Atmosphere ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 494 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yifeng Xue ◽  
Shihao Zhang ◽  
Zhen Zhou ◽  
Kun Wang ◽  
Kaiyun Liu ◽  
...  

Air pollution in Beijing, China has attracted continuous worldwide public attention along with the rapid urbanization of the city. By implementing a set of air pollution mitigation measures, the air quality of Beijing has been gradually improved in recent years. In this study, the intrinsic factors leading to air quality improvement in Beijing are studied via a quantitative evaluation of the temporal and spatial changes in emissions of primary air pollutants over the past ten years. Based on detailed activity levels of each economic sector and a localized database containing source and pollutant specific emission factors, an integrated emissions inventory of primary air pollutants discharged from various sources between 2006 and 2015 is established. With the implementation of phased air pollution mitigation measures, and the Clean Air Action Plan, the original coal-dominated energy structure in Beijing has undergone tremendous changes, resulting in the substantial reduction of multiple air pollutants. The total of emissions of six major atmospheric pollutants (PM10, PM2.5, SO2, NOX, VOCs and NH3) in Beijing decreased by 35% in 2015 compared to 2006—this noticeable decrease was well consistent with the declining trend of ambient concentration of criterion air pollutants (SO2, PM10, PM2.5 and NO2) and air quality improvement, thus showing a good correlation between the emission of air pollutants and the outcome of air quality. SO2 emission declined the most, at about 71.7%, which was related to the vigorous promotion of combustion source control, such as the shutdown of coal-fired facilities and domestic stoves and transition to clean energy, like natural gas or electricity. Emissions of PM decreased considerably (by 48%) due to energy structure optimization, industrial structure adjustments, and end-of-pipe PM source control. In general, NOX, NH3, and VOCs decreased relatively slightly, by 25%, 14%, and 2%, respectively, and accordingly, they represented the limiting factors for improving air quality and the key points of air pollution mitigation in Beijing for the future.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (10) ◽  
pp. 6393-6421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eri Saikawa ◽  
Hankyul Kim ◽  
Min Zhong ◽  
Alexander Avramov ◽  
Yu Zhao ◽  
...  

Abstract. Anthropogenic air pollutant emissions have been increasing rapidly in China, leading to worsening air quality. Modelers use emissions inventories to represent the temporal and spatial distribution of these emissions needed to estimate their impacts on regional and global air quality. However, large uncertainties exist in emissions estimates. Thus, assessing differences in these inventories is essential for the better understanding of air pollution over China. We compare five different emissions inventories estimating emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter of 10 µm or less (PM10) from China. The emissions inventories analyzed in this paper include the Regional Emission inventory in ASia v2.1 (REAS), the Multi-resolution Emission Inventory for China (MEIC), the Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research v4.2 (EDGAR), the inventory by Yu Zhao (ZHAO), and the Greenhouse Gas and Air Pollution Interactions and Synergies (GAINS). We focus on the period between 2000 and 2008, during which Chinese economic activities more than doubled. In addition to national totals, we also analyzed emissions from four source sectors (industry, transport, power, and residential) and within seven regions in China (East, North, Northeast, Central, Southwest, Northwest, and South) and found that large disagreements exist among the five inventories at disaggregated levels. These disagreements lead to differences of 67 µg m−3, 15 ppbv, and 470 ppbv for monthly mean PM10, O3, and CO, respectively, in modeled regional concentrations in China. We also find that all the inventory emissions estimates create a volatile organic compound (VOC)-limited environment and MEIC emissions lead to much lower O3 mixing ratio in East and Central China compared to the simulations using REAS and EDGAR estimates, due to their low VOC emissions. Our results illustrate that a better understanding of Chinese emissions at more disaggregated levels is essential for finding effective mitigation measures for reducing national and regional air pollution in China.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 2825-2838 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marios Panagi ◽  
Zoë L. Fleming ◽  
Paul S. Monks ◽  
Matthew J. Ashfold ◽  
Oliver Wild ◽  
...  

Abstract. The rapid urbanization and industrialization of northern China in recent decades has resulted in poor air quality in major cities like Beijing. Transport of air pollution plays a key role in determining the relative influence of local emissions and regional contributions to observed air pollution. In this paper, dispersion modelling (Numerical Atmospheric Modelling Environment, NAME model) is used with emission inventories and in situ ground measurement data to track the pathways of air masses arriving in Beijing. The percentage of time the air masses spent over specific regions during their travel to Beijing is used to assess the effects of regional meteorology on carbon monoxide (CO), a good tracer of anthropogenic emissions. The NAME model is used with the MEIC (Multi-resolution Emission Inventory for China) emission inventories to determine the amount of pollution that is transported to Beijing from the immediate surrounding areas and regions further away. This approach captures the magnitude and variability of CO over Beijing and reveals that CO is strongly driven by transport processes. This study provides a more detailed understanding of relative contributions to air pollution in Beijing under different regional airflow conditions. Approximately 45 % over a 4-year average (2013–2016) of the total CO pollution that affects Beijing is transported from other regions, and about half of this contribution comes from beyond the Hebei and Tianjin regions that immediately surround Beijing. The industrial sector is the dominant emission source from the surrounding regions and contributes over 20 % of the total CO in Beijing. Finally, using PM2.5 to determine high-pollution days, three pollution classification types of pollution were identified and used to analyse the APHH winter campaign and the 4-year period. The results can inform targeted control measures to be implemented by Beijing and the surrounding provinces to tackle air quality problems that affect Beijing and China.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 560-573
Author(s):  
Sugandh Kumar Choudhary

Air pollution is the fifth leading risk factor behind theworld – wide mortality. Ever growing population size feeding industrial activity through demand channel, vehicular pollution accompanied by rapid urbanization and burning of fossil fuels pose a serious threat to clean air. Some major air pollutants under study in the city of Prayagraj are Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), Particulate Matter (PM10) and Sulphur Dioxide (SO2). Pollution profile of the city localityi.e. Rambagh, Johnstonganj, Alopibagh, Crossing Mahalakshmi talkies and Bharat Yantra Nigam are studied. PM10 level of exposure is serious in Crossing Mahalakshmi talkiesand Alopibagh area as exposure to very high level in the range of 250 – 400 µg/m3 occurs for the longest duration of time. Alopibagh, Johnstonganj and Rambagh shows critical level of Nitrogen Dioxide indicating higher vehicular movement in these areas. Trend wise, SO2 component has spiked above 12 µg/m3 at Rambagh, Johnstonganj and Alopibagh during the onset of winters season in 2016. Similar phenomenon was seen at Bharat Yantra Nigam and Crossing Mahalakshmi talkies during winter season of 2019. Arrival of monsoon tend to lower pollutants content in the outdoor ambient air quality. Overall air quality is in critical zone at Alopibagh for 45 per cent of the time period followed by Johnstonganj. Crossing Mahalakshmi talkies and Bharat Yantra Nigamshows critical air quality for more than 60 per cent of the time period which calls for urgent action to prevent them from entering the critical zone. Overall air quality of Prayagraj is range bound with air pollutants improve during the monsoon season. However, improvement in air quality has reduced in the last two years as fall in air pollutants is less in 2018 and 2019 monsoon compared to previous two years. The findings of the paper will help the administration, municipal corporation and various stake holders of the city to take targeted measures locality wise towards pollution control depending upon pollutants concentration and exposure area – wise. It will also raise public awareness about pollutant levels in their area.


2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (16) ◽  
pp. 22527-22566 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Putero ◽  
P. Cristofanelli ◽  
A. Marinoni ◽  
B. Adhikary ◽  
R. Duchi ◽  
...  

Abstract. The Kathmandu Valley in South Asia is considered as one of the global "hot spots" in terms of urban air pollution. It is facing severe air quality problems as a result of rapid urbanization and land use change, socioeconomic transformation and high population growth. In this paper, we present the first full year (February 2013–January 2014) analysis of simultaneous measurements of two short-lived climate forcers/pollutants (SLCF/P), i.e. ozone (O3) and equivalent black carbon (hereinafter noted as BC) and aerosol number concentration at Paknajol, in the center of the Kathmandu metropolitan city. The diurnal behavior of equivalent black carbon (BC) and aerosol number concentration indicated that local pollution sources represent the major contributions to air pollution in this city. In addition to photochemistry, the planetary boundary layer (PBL) and wind play important roles in determining O3 variability, as suggested by the analysis of seasonal diurnal cycle and correlation with meteorological parameters and aerosol properties. Especially during pre-monsoon, high values of O3 were found during the afternoon/evening; this could be related to mixing and entrainment processes between upper residual layers and the PBL. The high O3 concentrations, in particular during pre-monsoon, appeared well related to the impact of major open vegetation fires occurring at regional scale. On a synoptic-scale perspective, westerly and regional atmospheric circulations appeared to be especially conducive for the occurrence of the high BC and O3 values. The very high values of SLCF/P, detected during the whole measurement period, indicated persisting adverse air quality conditions, dangerous for the health of over 3 million residents of the Kathmandu Valley, and the environment. Consequently, all of this information may be useful for implementing control measures to mitigate the occurrence of acute pollution levels in the Kathmandu Valley and surrounding area.


2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nguyen Quang-Loc ◽  
Ananya Singh ◽  
Saanvi Jain ◽  
Khangai Shirchin

Expeditious increase in population and industrialization has led to alarming rates of air pollution in all countries. However, developing economies have had to face a more adverse and severe impact. This had led to many changes in the day to day living of citizens. In this paper we have focused on the psychological process and predictors of migration intention of the people living in Hanoi, Vietnam. Two stratified random datasets of 475 people were used, and Bayesian analysis was performed on this dataset. We found out that the intent to move was negatively associated to the individual’s satisfaction with air quality. We also found that people who have family members that have fallen victim to a disease caused by air pollution are more likely to migrate. This paper discusses an important topic: immigration of the younger demographic, i.e. the Hanoi workforce, which may cause restrictions and hurdles in the city's urbanisation and development. The findings suggest that, if measures against air pollution are not taken, economic forces may be disrupted, posing a threat to urban growth. As a result, collaborative activities and steps need to be taken by the government to curb this unfortunate consequence.


2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (24) ◽  
pp. 13957-13971 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Putero ◽  
P. Cristofanelli ◽  
A. Marinoni ◽  
B. Adhikary ◽  
R. Duchi ◽  
...  

Abstract. The Kathmandu Valley in south Asia is considered as one of the global "hot spots" in terms of urban air pollution. It is facing severe air quality problems as a result of rapid urbanization and land use change, socioeconomic transformation, and high population growth. In this paper, we present the first full year (February 2013–January 2014) analysis of simultaneous measurements of two short-lived climate forcers/pollutants (SLCF/P), i.e., ozone (O3) and equivalent black carbon (hereinafter noted as BC) and aerosol number concentration at Paknajol, in the city center of Kathmandu. The diurnal behavior of equivalent BC and aerosol number concentration indicated that local pollution sources represent the major contributions to air pollution in this city. In addition to photochemistry, the planetary boundary layer (PBL) and wind play important roles in determining O3 variability, as suggested by the analysis of seasonal changes of the diurnal cycles and the correlation with meteorological parameters and aerosol properties. Especially during pre-monsoon, high values of O3 were found during the afternoon/evening. This could be related to mixing and entrainment processes between upper residual layers and the PBL. The high O3 concentrations, in particular during pre-monsoon, appeared well related to the impact of major open vegetation fires occurring at the regional scale. On a synoptic-scale perspective, westerly and regional atmospheric circulations appeared to be especially conducive for the occurrence of the high BC and O3 values. The very high values of SLCF/P, detected during the whole measurement period, indicated persisting adverse air quality conditions, dangerous for the health of over 3 million residents of the Kathmandu Valley, and the environment. Consequently, all of this information may be useful for implementing control measures to mitigate the occurrence of acute pollution levels in the Kathmandu Valley and surrounding area.


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