Air quality, urban fluxes and cities resilience under climate change – A brief overview

Abstract

Cities are home of about 70% of the European population, and it is expected that by 2050 this number will be achieved around the world. As a result, cities are facing important challenges related to pressures induced by changes on urban metabolism and by climate change (CC) effects. Understanding the key factors determining the vulnerability of a city provides a framework to consider resilience. These issues become more and more relevant since changes in urban structure and metabolism together with CC will start affecting atmospheric emissions, urban air quality and consequently human health. Cobenefits of an urban air quality and CC approach need to be further addressed taking into consideration that CC creates both risks and opportunities. Therefore, an integrated assessment of the interaction between resilience factors and CC effects, and its influence on the urban microclimate and air quality, is required to better adapt to future climate. This knowledge is fundamental to support policy makers and stakeholders helping them to choose the best strategies to manage resources, to mitigate extreme weather events and to predict air pollution episodes. This article offers a systematic review on CC impacts in cities, providing some adaptation strategies and suggesting future research topics.

Visualization and Analysis of Urban Air Quality Management Using Bibliometric Techniques and Social Network Analysis for the Period 1975 to 2022: A Review

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Impacts of nature-based solutions on the urban atmospheric environment: a case study for Eindhoven, The Netherlands

“…Some examples of NBS are green parks, stormwater ponds, green roofs and walls, and permeable pavements. NBS have just recently started to be applied by policymakers and their effects include improving air quality and reducing local temperature (Borrego et al, 2012;Gunawardena et al, 2017;Rafael et al, 2016;Tallis et al, 2015), improving mental and physical health and well-being (Keniger et al, 2013), leading to urban compaction and increase in real-estate prices (Augusto et al, 2020;Roebeling et al, 2017;Saraiva et al, 2017) and enhancing the resilience of cities to climate changeserving as proactive adaptation options for municipalities (Borrego et al, 2017).…”

How Effective Are Nature-Based Solutions in Different Environments?

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