Search Results (3)

The Smog Free Tower (SFT) in the city of Xi’an, China, is the world’s first outdoor architecture that uses solar energy and filtration technology to purify polluted air. It provides a unique opportunity to explore residents’ willingness to pay for air quality and their related behaviors. Drawing on data collected after the establishment of the SFT, this paper reveals the characteristics of changes in people’s willingness to pay for clean air. We found that, prior to the release of an assessment report on the SFT, housing prices had an inverted U-shaped relationship with the distance to the SFT, which indicated people tended to purchase houses a certain distance away from the SFT. The threshold value of distance was inversely related to the greening ratio of the residential area. However, after the publication of the experimental report on the SFT, housing prices decreased as the distance to the SFT increased, indicating the closer the house was to the SFT, the more likely people were to buy it. These changes confirmed that people are willing to pay for clean air. The convenience of transportation had a significant moderating effect on the willingness to pay for clean air, however. In other words, people may buy houses with lower air quality if they have better transportation accessibility. The findings of this paper may have practical implications for environmental governance, urban planning, residential satisfaction, and real estate market regulation. Full article

Winter smog episodes are a severe problem in many cities around the world. The following two mechanisms are responsible for influencing the level of pollutant concentrations: emission of pollutants from different sources and associated processes leading to formation of secondary aerosols in the atmosphere and meteorology, including advection, which is stimulated by horizontal wind, and convection, which depends on vertical air mass movements associated with boundary layer stability that are determined by vertical temperature and humidity gradients. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the performance of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based measurement system developed for investigation of urban boundary layer dynamics. The evaluation was done by comparing the results of temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and particulate matter fraction with aerodynamic diameter below 10 μm (PM₁₀) concentration vertical profiles obtained using this system with two reference meteorological stations: Jagiellonian University Campus (JUC) and radio transmission tower (RTCN), located in the urban area of Krakow city, Southern Poland. The secondary aim of the study was to optimize data processing algorithms improving the response time of UAV sensor measurements during the ascent and descent parts of the flight mission. Full article

In November 2019, the Supreme Court of India issued a notification to all the states in the National Capital Region of Delhi to install smog towers for clean air and allocated INR 36 crores (~USD 5.2 million) for a pilot. Can we vacuum our air pollution problem using smog towers? The short answer is “no”. Atmospheric science defines the air pollution problem as (a) a dynamic situation where the air is moving at various speeds with no boundaries and (b) a complex mixture of chemical compounds constantly forming and transforming into other compounds. With no boundaries, it is unscientific to assume that one can trap air, clean it, and release into the same atmosphere simultaneously. In this paper, we outline the basics of atmospheric science to describe why the idea of vacuuming outdoor air pollution is unrealistic, and the long view on air quality management in Indian cities. Full article