TY - JOUR
T1 - Fine resolution air quality dynamics related to socioeconomic and land use factors in the most polluted desert metropolitan in the American Southwest
AU - Li, Yubin
AU - Myint, Soe W.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research study is supported by the NASA ECOSTRESS program (NASA Award Number 80NSSC20K0168 ). Any views and opinions are those of the authors alone. The authors would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on the earlier version of this manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors
PY - 2021/9/20
Y1 - 2021/9/20
N2 - Air pollution kills approximately 4.2 million people every year. As air pollution varies significantly in different urban areas, the assessment of urban emissions is key to taking appropriate actions and formulating policies for sustainable built environments and to promote the wellbeing of people. The overarching goal of this study was to generate fine resolution aerosol optical depth (AOD) using Landsat imagery and examine both the socioeconomic inequalities of air pollution exposure and the air quality variation related to different land-use categories. This study has focused on a period of unusual population growth, 2000–2010, in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area. It was found that socioeconomic factors, vegetation indexes, and land use land cover types are all strong predictors of AOD, and the negative coefficients of socioeconomic values reveal insight into the social inequality of air pollution exposure. Results suggest that the government regulation on air pollution during the study period helped to improve air quality. Meanwhile, planting vegetation to mitigate air pollution should be carefully examined in order to find the right vegetation species and spatial configuration of vegetation cover in urban settings.
AB - Air pollution kills approximately 4.2 million people every year. As air pollution varies significantly in different urban areas, the assessment of urban emissions is key to taking appropriate actions and formulating policies for sustainable built environments and to promote the wellbeing of people. The overarching goal of this study was to generate fine resolution aerosol optical depth (AOD) using Landsat imagery and examine both the socioeconomic inequalities of air pollution exposure and the air quality variation related to different land-use categories. This study has focused on a period of unusual population growth, 2000–2010, in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area. It was found that socioeconomic factors, vegetation indexes, and land use land cover types are all strong predictors of AOD, and the negative coefficients of socioeconomic values reveal insight into the social inequality of air pollution exposure. Results suggest that the government regulation on air pollution during the study period helped to improve air quality. Meanwhile, planting vegetation to mitigate air pollution should be carefully examined in order to find the right vegetation species and spatial configuration of vegetation cover in urban settings.
KW - AOD
KW - Air pollution
KW - Lands use and land cover types
KW - Landsat
KW - Socioeconomic status
KW - Vegetation
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U2 - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147713
DO - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147713
M3 - Article
C2 - 34022573
AN - SCOPUS:85107645847
SN - 0048-9697
VL - 788
JO - Science of the Total Environment
JF - Science of the Total Environment
M1 - 147713
ER -