Analyzing temporal changes in urban forest structure and the effect on air quality improvement

Parsa, Vahid Amini; Salehi, Esmail; Yavari, A.R.; Bodegom, Peter M. van

doi:10.1016/j.scs.2019.101548

Cited by 50 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 65 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Land uses range from agricultural to urban. Urban parks and green spaces are mainly outside the city center and share similarities in their recreational use and the common presence of grass cover and occurrence of deciduous and evergreen trees [67].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

An improved method for assessing mismatches between supply and demand in urban regulating ecosystem services: A case study in Tabriz, Iran

et al. 2019

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Regulating ecosystem services provided by urban forests are of great importance for the quality of life among city dwellers. To reach a maximum contribution to well-being in cities, the urban regulating ecosystem services (URES) must match with the demands in terms of space and time. If we understand the matches or mismatches between the current urban dwellers’ desired quality conditions (demand) and the supply of URES by urban forests (UF) in the cities, this will facilitate integrating the concepts of ecosystem services in urban planning and management, but such an assessment has suffered from major knowledge limitations. Since it is complex and problematic to identify the direct demands for URES and the spatiotemporal patterns therein, improving the demand indicators can help to determine the actual requirements. In this paper, a methodological approach based on indicators is presented and demonstrated for two important URES: air quality improvement and global climate change mitigation provided by urban trees and shrubs. Four air quality standards and greenhouse gas reduction targets were used and compared to supplies of the URES in Tabriz, Iran. Our results show that the mean contribution of the URES supply to air quality standards and greenhouse gas reduction targets is modest. Hence, in Tabriz, there is a strong mismatch between demand and supply. Mismatches at the city scale will have to be reduced by both a reduction in pollutant emissions and an increased provisioning of URES supply through urban greenery. The presented assessment approach and the results for Tabriz make it explicit how different the demands and supplies of the two studied URES are, and we expect similar mismatches in many other cities. Therefore, our approach, relatively simple but still realistic and easy-to-apply, can raise awareness about, and the utility of, the ecosystem services concepts for urban planning and policymaking.

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, there is a need for opportunities to mitigate and reduce urban air pollution [62,63]. Planting and maintaining UF is one of the most considerable strategies developed and evaluated to mitigate, adapt, and overcome urban air pollution problems [20,38,64–67].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An improved method for assessing mismatches between supply and demand in urban regulating ecosystem services: A case study in Tabriz, Iran

et al. 2019

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…During the urbanization process, natural ecological landscapes such as forests, grasslands, and pastoral areas are continuously transformed into human-dominated landscapes at a rapid pace to fulfill the growing requirements of social and economic development. Because the function and structure of ecosystems are altered, the above transformation process has resulted in the loss of urban ecosystem services, such as reduced soil conservation (Sun and Li 2017), decreased carbon storage (He et al 2016), and degraded air quality (Parsa et al 2019), and in turn, the deterioration of ecosystem services seriously threatens the survival and health of humans (MEA 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the ecosystem service trade-offs/synergies have largely been ignored. Traditionally, urban planning generally focused on the maximizing some key ecosystem services, such as air quality (Parsa et al 2019), water purification (Wu et al 2019), and climate regulation (Gao et al 2019). These policies and plans overlooked the complex relationship among multiple ecosystem services and fell short of effectively improving overall ecosystem service benefits.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating spatiotemporal dynamics and trade-off/synergy of multiple ecosystem services in response to land cover change: a case study of Nanjing city, China

Zhao

2020

Environ Monit Assess

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Investigating the spatiotemporal trends and trade-off/synergy relationships among ecosystem services can provide effective support for urban planning and decision making toward sustainable development. With Nanjing city in China as a case study, this study assessed the spatiotemporal dynamics of six key ecosystem services from 2005 to 2030. Integration of Markov-cellular automata and ecosystem services models was realized to analyze the potential impacts of future urbanization on ecosystem services by simulating business-as-usual (BAU), cropland protection (CP), and ecological restoration (ER) scenarios. Furthermore, an innovative trade-off/synergy degree was developed to quantify the magnitude of the complex relationship among the multiple ecosystem services under the different scenarios. Due to the rapid expansion of built-up land, carbon storage, habitat quality, and air purification decreased 2.92%, 5.80%, and 7.91%, respectively. The CP scenario exhibited the highest crop production values, and the ER scenario was a better urban development strategy that enhanced the regulating ecosystem services at the expense of crop production. To promote urban ecosystem services and minimize trade-offs, we proposed certain future urban development strategies, including ecological corridor construction and compact development. The study could provide a scientific reference for the effective ecosystem management of Nanjing and other rapidly urbanized regions.

show abstract

“…Another type of research simulates and calculates the amount of PM removal within a certain area and the forest's environmental health value [16]. The aspects of both include PM retention by roadside trees and optimization strategies for tree-planting patterns [17,18], PM adsorption capability of urban tree cover [19][20][21], impacts of spatial heterogeneity of trees on air pollution [22], the impact of tree cover on PM 2.5 and its health value evaluation [4,[23][24][25]. The related studies cover many aspects of trees and PM removal from different objectives.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulation of the Impact of Urban Forest Scale on PM2.5 and PM10 based on System Dynamics

Zhou¹,

Liu²,

Xia³

2019

Sustainability

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the context of ecological civil construction in China, afforestation is highly valued. Planting trees can improve air quality in China's large cities. However, there is a lack of scientific analysis quantifying the impact urban forest scale has on the air quality, and what scale is advisable. The problem still exists of subjective decision-making in afforestation. Similar studies have rarely analyzed the long-term effect research of urban forests on air improvement. Using as an example, the city of Wuhan, this paper identifies the regularity between particulate matter concentration and adsorption of sample leaves, and establishes a system dynamics model of "economy, energy and atmospheric environment.” By combining this regularity with the model, the long-term impact of forest scale on particulate matter and atmospheric environment was simulated. The results show that if the forest coverage rate reaches at least 30%, the annual average concentrations of inhalable particulate matter (PM10) and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) can both reach the Grade I limit of national Ambient Air Quality Standard by 2050. The current forest cover is 22.9% of the administrative area. Increasing the forest cover by 600 km2 would increase this percentage to 30% of the total area. In the long run (by the year 2050), however, we showed that this increase would only reduce the annual concentration of PM2.5 and PM10 by 1–2%. Therefore, about 90% of the concentration reduction would still rely on the traditional emission reduction measures. More other ecological functions of forests should be considered in afforestation plan.

show abstract

Analyzing temporal changes in urban forest structure and the effect on air quality improvement

Cited by 50 publications

References 65 publications

An improved method for assessing mismatches between supply and demand in urban regulating ecosystem services: A case study in Tabriz, Iran

An improved method for assessing mismatches between supply and demand in urban regulating ecosystem services: A case study in Tabriz, Iran

Investigating spatiotemporal dynamics and trade-off/synergy of multiple ecosystem services in response to land cover change: a case study of Nanjing city, China

Simulation of the Impact of Urban Forest Scale on PM2.5 and PM10 based on System Dynamics

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About