Integrated dispersion-deposition modelling for air pollutant reduction via green infrastructure at an urban scale

Green infrastructure (GI) can reduce air pollutants concentrations via coupled effects of surface deposition and aerodynamic dispersion, yet their magnitudes and relative effectiveness in reducing pollutant concentration are less studied at the urban scale. Here, we develop and apply an integrated GI assessment approach to simulate the individual effects of GI along with their combined impact on pollutant concentration reduction under eight GI scenarios. These include current for year 2015 (2015-Base); business-as-usual for year 2039 (2039-BAU); three alternative future scenarios with maximum possible coniferous (2039-Max-Con), deciduous (2039-Max-Dec) trees, and grassland (2039-Max-Grl) over the available land; and another three alternative future scenarios by considering coniferous (2039-NR-Con), deciduous (2039-NR-Dec) trees, and grassland (2039-NR-Grl) around traffic lanes. A typical UK town, Guildford, is chosen as study area where we estimated current and future traffic emissions (NO_x, PM₁₀ and PM_2.5), annual deposited amount and pollutants concentration reductions and percentage shared by dispersion and deposition effect in concentration reduction under above scenarios. The annual pollutant deposition was found to vary from 0.27–2.77 t·yr⁻¹·km⁻² for NO_x, 0.46–1.03 t·yr⁻¹·km⁻² for PM₁₀ and 0.08–0.23 t·yr⁻¹·km⁻² for PM_2.5, depending on the percentage share of GI type and traffic emissions. The 2039-Max-Dec showed the aerodynamic effect of GI can reduce the annual pollutant concentration levels up to ~10% in NO_x, ~1% in PM₁₀ and ~0.8% in PM_2.5. Furthermore, the total reductions can be achieved, via GI's coupled effects of surface deposition and aerodynamic dispersion, up to ~35% in NO_x, ~21% in PM₁₀ and ~8% in PM_2.5 with ~75% GI cover in modelled domain under 2015-Base scenario. Coniferous trees (2039-Max-Con) were found to promote enhanced turbulence flow and offer more surface for deposition. Moreover, planting coniferous trees near traffic lanes (2039-NR-Con) was found to be a more effective solution to reduce annual pollutant concentration.