Quantification of green infrastructure effects on airborne nanoparticles dispersion at an urban scale

Abstract

Many dispersion models are available to simulate the mass concentrations of particulate matter in an urban environment. Still, fewer are capable of simulating the effect of green infrastructure (GI) on the airborne nanoparticles represented by total particle number concentration (ToNC). We developed an integrated approach capable of simulating the dispersion of airborne nanoparticles under the various scenarios of green infrastructure. We demonstrated the usefulness of this approach by simulating a high-resolution spatial (250 × 250 m) concentration of traffic-emitted airborne nanoparticles at an urban scale under eight GI urban planning scenarios: the base year 2015 (2015-Rl-GI); business-as-usual for 2039 (2039-BAU-GI); three hypothetical future scenarios with maximum possible coniferous (2039-HMax-Con), deciduous (2039-HMax-Dec) trees, and grassland (2039-HMax-Grl) over the available land; and three alternative future scenarios by considering coniferous (2039-HNR-Con), deciduous (2039-HNR-Dec) trees, and grassland (2039-HNR-Grl) around traffic lanes. We assessed both the parametric and structural uncertainties due to particle transformation processes (nucleation, coagulation and deposition) and uncertainty in particle number emission factors (PNEFs) on ToNC, respectively. We also simulated the combined impact of deposition and aerodynamic dispersion of GI on ToNC reduction. The annual average ToN emission (ToNE) reduced from 5.36 × 1022 (2015) to 2.84 × 1021 (2039) particles due to the UK's air quality plan in future. Parametric uncertainty due to variable PNEFs might cause variation in annual ToNC from −57% to +60%. However, structural uncertainties in ToNC, due to particle transformation processes were up to −12%, −11% and +0.14% for deposition, coagulation, and nucleation, respectively. The annual ToN deposition (ToND) and concentration were 28–4800 × 1019 particles and 3.94–19.10 × 103 # cm−3, respectively, depending on the percentage share of GI type and annual traffic emissions. Planting maximum coniferous trees (2039-HMax-Con) simulated maximum reduction in annual ToNC. Coniferous trees near traffic lanes (2039-HNR-Con) also found to be more effective to reduce annual ToNC.