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GIS analysis on relationship between traffic density parameters and near-road air pollutants
Citation:
Xue, J., S. Liu, AND F. Chen. GIS analysis on relationship between traffic density parameters and near-road air pollutants. 2019 International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE 2019), Utrecht, August 25 - 28, 2019.
Impact/Purpose:
Presented at the 31st annual conference of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE 2019)
Description:
Traffic-related air pollution has become an important human health issue as more people are moving to near-road areas for living and/or work, and more vehicles are passing through various road ways. Chronic and cumulative exposure to near-road air pollutants has become a focus of human health risk studies. Because vehicle release is an important source of near-road air pollutants we focused on traffic density - a metric integrating major roads and traffic count –as a potential index for near-road air pollution. Large air quality survey (AQS) data on Ozone (O3), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), Sulfur dioxide (SO2), Lead (Pb), and particular matter (PM2.5 and PM10) were retrieved from US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s Aerometric Information Retrieval System (AIRS). Their daily-averaged concentrations were used to quantify the correlation with Major-Road Density (MRD) and All-Traffic Density (ATD). CO and NOx were found as air pollutants with larger correlation coefficients in the range of 0.22 to 0.47, while O3, SO2, Pb, and PMs showed correlation coefficients less than 0.19. CO and NOx’s correlation with traffic density index was higher in the peak traffic time than the low traffic time. Mean correlation coefficients between NOx and MRD fell in the range of 0.36 and 0.50 within a distance of 50- to 300-meters off the road. Mean correlation coefficients between NOx and ATD fell in the range of 0.16 and 0.41 within a distance of 50- to 300-meters off the road. These correlations were similar between spring and fall and remained constant between 2011 and 2012. Our study shows that near-road air pollutants contributed primarily by vehicle release are closely correlated with major road density and traffic density. Thus, these traffic density metrics may be useful indicators of near-road vehicle-released air pollutants for cumulative health risk studies. Such indicators can be used to inform community-based transportation decisions.
