Urban Air Quality Flashcards
What is a particulate?
Tiny pieces of solids and liquids floating in the air.
How do particulate levels vary in urban and rural areas?
More particulate are found in urban areas (10-40 microgram per m cubed) compared to less than 10 in rural areas.
What are the 4 sources of particulates?
-Vehicle exhausts
-Burning
-Construction, mining and quarrying
-Plants and moulds
How many particulates are produced by vehicle exhausts?
Produce 80% of fine particulates.
How is burning a source of particulates?
Burning of cigarettes and fuel produces fine particulates like soot and ash.
How is construction mining and quarrying a source of particulates?
These activities produce course particulates like tiny fragments of rock and cement dust.
How are plants and moles a source of particulates?
Generate coarse particulates like pollen and mould spores.
How do particulates cause health problems?
Coarser particulates are filtered out but fine particulates can enter the lungs and cause asthma, lung cancer and heart disease.
How is photochemical smog created?
When pollutants that come from burning fossil fuels constant sunlight the UV light causes it to break down and release harmful chemicals forming a smog.
What health problems is photochemical smog linked to?
Breathing difficulties and respiratory disorders.
Give an example of a place that struggles with photochemical smog.
Los Angeles, USA
What are the 4 small scale methods to reduce air pollution?
-Congestion charging
-Pedestrianisation
-Improve public transport
-Schemes to reduce traffic
What are the 2 larger scale methods of tackling urban air pollution?
-New legislations
-Alternative fuels
How does congestion charging reduce air pollution?
Includes charging people when they use their vehicles in certain places at certain times encouraging them to drive less and use public transport more.
Give an example of congestion charging being effective.
Central London:
Congestion charges reduced emissions by 15% in its first year of operation.
What are the negatives of congestion charge reducing air pollution?
-Some people travel around the edge of cities now increasing traffic in those areas.
-The volume of traffic is so high it’s difficult to enforce fines.
What is pedestrianisation and how does it reduce air pollution?
Restricts vehicles from entering certain places reducing road traffic.
Give an example of where pedestrianisation has been used.
Bedford, the high street was widened to encourage more walkers to use the high street.
What is the negative of pedestrianisation?
Can lead to ships recording fewer customers because people can only get to them on foot.
How does improving public transport increase air quality?
Encouraging people to use public transport instead of their cars reduces pollution.
Give 3 examples of how cities may improve their public transport.
-Improved bus services. Eg: bus lines to make buses quicker.
-Park and ride schemes to make it easier to access public transport.
-Teams and light railway services they don’t get caught in road congestion.
Give an example of public transport improvements.
The metro link in Manchester.
Has taken 2.6 million cars off the roads.
What are the negatives of public transport improvements?
include the example.
-Improvements are expensive
Metro link cost £1 billion
-Park and ride schemes can shift traffic problems elsewhere.
How can schemes to reduce traffic reduce air pollution?
Schemes such as car sharing reduce the amount of cars on the road so less pollution is emitted.
Give an example of a scheme to reduce traffic.
London: car sharing scheme.
What are the negatives of car sharing schemes.
Car sharing can be inconvenient and dangerous.
Name 2 laws that aimed to reduce air pollution.
-Uk clean air act
-Road vehicles regulations
What is the UK clean Air act?
Aimed to reduce domestic pollution by introducing smoke control areas where only smokeless fuels could be burned.
Introduced taller chimneys so pollutants would be released higher in the atmosphere.
What is the road vehicles regulations act?
Aimed to reduce exhaust emissions by ensuring cars pass an emissions test in their MOT.
How can alternative fuels reduce air pollution?
If petrol and diesel are replaced with cleaner fuels they will reduce less.
What are the 2 alternative fuels?
-Biofuels produced from plants.
-Electric vehicles that run off batteries.
What are the negatives of alternative fuels?
Biofuels:
-Growing crops to create the fuels can reduce biodiversity.
Electric Vehicles:
-Need recharge points
-Producing and disposing of batteries can cause environmental problems.
