scholarly journals Influence of Different Types of Land Use on the Contents of Potentially Toxic Elements and De-icing Salts in Roadside Soils and Trees in Urban Areas

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (21) ◽  
pp. 8985
Author(s):  
Jin-Hee Ju ◽  
Ju-Young Park ◽  
Yong-Han Yoon

In order to manage the urban environment and reduce pollution, it is essential to determine potentially toxic elements and de-icing salts in roadside soils and plants, which are major components of green infrastructure. A field study was conducted to elucidate the influence of land use on potentially toxic elements and de-icing salts in roadside soil and trees in urban areas. The effect of land use was determined in commercial, residential, industrial, and green areas of Cheongju city. The roadside soil and plant samples were collected from four different sites along a major roadway in the city. The chemical parameters determined were pH, electronic conductivity, potentially toxic elements (Cd, Cu, Zn, Cr, As, Pb, Ni), and de-icing salts (Na, Ca, Mg). The pH, electronic conductivity, potentially toxic elements (except copper), and de-icing salt values were significantly (p < 0.05) affected by the land use. On the other hand, the potentially toxic element (except zinc and nickel) levels in roadside tree leaves (Ginkgo biloba) were not affected by the different land use, whereas the de-icing salt levels were significantly different (p < 0.05). The enrichment factor (EF) of potentially toxic elements was found to be lower than that of de-icing salts with the highest values of sodium in green areas and of magnesium in commercial areas. These results provide information on the implications of land use, including the surrounding area of influenced roadside soil and plant chemistry for the urban ecosystem.

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 1534-1542 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Rozos ◽  
C. Makropoulos ◽  
Č. Maksimović

The provision of high quality urban water services, the assets of which are often conceptualised as ‘blue infrastructure’, is essential for public health and quality of life in the cities. On the other hand, parks, recreation grounds, gardens, green roofs and in general ‘green infrastructure’, provide a range of (urban) ecosystem services (including quality of life and aesthetics) and could also be thought of as inter alia contributors to the mitigation of floods, droughts, noise, air pollution and urban heat island (UHI) effects, improvement of biodiversity, amenity values and human health. Currently, these ‘blue’ and ‘green’ assets/infrastructure are planned to operate as two separate systems despite the obvious interactions between them (for example, low runoff coefficient of green areas resulting in reduction of stormwater flows, and irrigation of green areas by potable water in increasing pressure on water supply systems). This study explores the prospects of a more integrated ‘blue-green’ approach – tested at the scale of a household. Specifically, UWOT (the Urban Water Optioneering Tool) was extended and used to assess the potential benefits of a scheme that employed locally treated greywater along with harvested rainwater for irrigating a green roof. The results of the simulations indicated that the blue-green approach combined the benefits of both ‘green’ and ‘blue’ technologies/services and at the same time minimised the disadvantages of each when installed separately.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (19) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abimbola O Famuyiwa ◽  
Yetunde A Lanre-Iyanda ◽  
Olabode Osifeso

Background. Among soil contaminants, potentially toxic elements (PTE) are of major significance because they are ubiquitous, toxic and persistent. Chronic exposure of humans to these elements has been linked with developmental delay, cancer, atherosclerosis and kidney damage, stomach ailments, respiratory problems, heart disease and cancer. Objectives. The present study aims to investigate current PTE concentrations in urban soils of Lagos, an example of a rapidly urbanizing megacity in a developing country. The variation in PTE (chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), magnesium (Mn), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn)) levels across different land use types was examined. Information from this study will be useful in the ranking of contaminated sites, environmental quality management, guidance for remediation, redevelopment of contaminated sites and will provide crucial information for general urban planning decisions. Methods. Five areas spread across four local government areas were selected, representing different socio-economic areas of Lagos (Victoria Island, Lagos mainland, Ikeja, Ifako-Ijaiye and Makoko). Sampling locations within the study areas were comprised of school playgrounds, roadsides, ornamental gardens, open spaces, train stations, industrial estates and dump sites. A total of 126 samples were collected. Results. The overall mean levels of PTE concentrations in this study were comparable to those found in large European cities where main pollution sources include traffic and current or former heavy manufacturing industries. Conclusions. Regulation and legislation on environmental issues, including effective solid waste management strategies and enforcement of emission standards should be emphasized in order to reduce the impact of PTE pollution on the inhabitants of urban areas in developing countries. Competing Interests. The authors declare no competing financial interests


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana-Maria Popa ◽  
Diana Andreea Onose ◽  
Ionut Cosmin Sandric ◽  
Simona Raluca Gradinaru ◽  
Athanasios Alexandru Gavrilidis

&lt;p&gt;Urban green infrastructure has various benefits known as ecosystem services such as regulating, cultural, provisioning and supporting services. Among the provided benefits there are decrease of air temperature, increasing humidity and mitigating urban heat island as regulating services; human-nature relations as cultural services; improving air quality, carbon sequestration as provisioning services and photosynthesis, nutrient and water cycling as supporting services. The high intensity of the urbanization process across the last decades coupled with weak legislative frameworks resulted both in large areas affected by urban sprawl and densification of the existing urban fabric. Both phenomenon generated loss in open spaces, especially green areas. In the context of the sustainable urbanization promoted by HABITAT Agenda, the knowledge related with the distribution, size and quality of urban green areas represents a priority. The study aim is to identify small urban green areas at local level at different time moments for a dynamic evaluation. We focused on small urban green areas since they are scarcely analysed even if their importance for the urban quality of life Is continuously increasing given the urbanization process. We used satellite imagery acquired by Planet Satellite Constellations, with a spatial resolution of 3.7 m and daily coverage, for extracting green areas. The images were processed using Geographic Object-Based Image Analysis (OBIA) techniques implemented in Esri ArcGIS Pro. The spatial analysis we performed generated information about distribution, surfaces, quality (based on NDVI) and dynamic of small urban green areas. The results are connected with the local level development of the urban areas we analysed, but also with the population consumption pattern for leisure services, housing, transport or other public utilities. The analysis can represent a complementary method for extracting green areas at urban level and can support the data collection for calculating urban sustainability indicators.&lt;/p&gt;


Land ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janis Arnold ◽  
Janina Kleemann ◽  
Christine Fürst

Urban ecosystem services (ES) contribute to the compensation of negative effects caused by cities by means of, for example, reducing air pollution and providing cooling effects during the summer time. In this study, an approach is described that combines the regional biotope and land use data set, hemeroby and the accessibility of open space in order to assess the provision of urban ES. Hemeroby expresses the degree of naturalness of land use types and, therefore, provides a differentiated assessment of urban ES. Assessment of the local capacity to provide urban ES was conducted with a spatially explicit modeling approach in the city of Halle (Saale) in Germany. The following urban ES were assessed: (a) global climate regulation, (b) local climate regulation, (c) air pollution control, (d) water cycle regulation, (e) food production, (f) nature experience and (g) leisure activities. We identified areas with high and low capacity of ES in the urban context. For instance, the central parts of Halle had very low or no capacity to provide ES due to highly compact building styles and soil sealing. In contrast, peri-urban areas had particularly high capacities. The potential provision of regulating services was spatially limited due to the location of land use types that provide these services.


2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 426-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuko Hamada ◽  
Takafumi Tanaka ◽  
Takeshi Ohta

Sci ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 46
Author(s):  
Guri Venvik ◽  
Floris C. Boogaard

Sustainable urban drainage systems (SuDS) such as swales are designed to collect, store and infiltrate a large amount of surface runoff water during heavy rainfall. Stormwater is known to transport pollutants, such as particle-bound Potential Toxic Elements (PTE), which are known to often accumulate in the topsoil. A portable XRF instrument (pXRF) is used to provide in situ spatial characterization of soil pollutants, specifically lead (Pb), zink (Zn) and copper (Cu). The method uses pXRF measurements of PTE along profiles with set intervals (1 meter) to cover the swale with cross-sections, across the inlet, the deepest point and the outlet. Soil samples are collected, and the In-Situ measurements are verified by the results from laboratory analyses. Stormwater is here shown to be the transporting media for the pollutants, so it is of importance to investigate areas most prone to flooding and infiltration. This quick scan method is time and cost-efficient, easy to execute and the results are comparable to any known (inter)national threshold criteria for polluted soils. The results are of great importance for all stakeholders in cities that are involved in climate adaptation and implementing green infrastructure in urban areas. However, too little is still known about the long-term functioning of the soil-based SuDS facilities.


2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 1196
Author(s):  
Tiago Henrique de Oliveira ◽  
José Gleidson Dantas ◽  
Josiclêda Domiciano Galvíncio ◽  
Rejane Magalhães de Mendonça Pimentel ◽  
Milton Botler

As rápidas mudanças do uso e cobertura do solo em ambiente urbano apresentam grande impacto nas relações entre os ciclos energéticos e hidrológicos sobre a superfície. O município do Recife, através da Lei de Uso e Ocupação do Solo de 1996 (Lei nº 16.176/96) define área verde como “toda área de domínio público ou privado, em solo natural,onde predomina qualquer forma de vegetação, distribuída em seus diferentes estratos: Arbóreo, Arbustivo e Herbáceo /Forrageira, nativa ou exótica”. O objetivo deste artigo é analisar a variação espacial das áreas verdes disponíveis no município do Recife e a evolução espaço-temporal da qualidade ambiental na RPA 4 através do computo do Índice de umidade (NDWI), Índice de Área Foliar (IAF) e Temperatura da superfície em imagens TM Landsat. Foi realizada uma classificação supervisionada na ortofotocarta Recife onde as áreas verdes foram exportadas para polígonos, permitindo a sua quantificação. Para as imagens TM foi aplicada parte da metodologia SEBAL. As áreas verdes ocupam 45,58% do Recife. Os transectos lineares e perfis permitiram visualizar mais facilmente as mudanças espaço-temporais ocorridos na RPA-4. Foi visualizada grande diferença de temperatura entre as áreas vegetadas e as áreas mais urbanizadas. Palavras-chave: Uso e ocupação do solo; área urbana, áreas vegetadas, sensoriamento remoto; MAXVER. A B S T R A C T The rapid change of use and land cover in urban environment poses great impact on relations between energy and hydrological cycles on the surface. The municipality of Recife, through the Land Use Legislation from 1996 (Law No. 16.176/96) defines green area as ";;;;;;any public or private domain area, in natural soil, where overcrows any form of vegetation, distributed in its different layers: Arboreal, shrubby and Herbaceous Forage, native or exotic";;;;;;. The goal of this paper is to analyze the spatial variation of available green areas in the city of Recife and the spatio-temporal evolution of environmental quality in the Political Administrative Region 4, known as RPA-4, through the calculation of moisture content (NDWI), leaf area index (LAI) and the surface temperature from Landsat TM images. Supervised classification was performed on orthophoto Reef where the green areas were exported to polygons, allowing its quantification. For the TM images, it has been applied the methodology SEBAL. The green areas occupy 45.58% of Recife. The linear transects and profiles allowed to show more easily space-time changes occurring in the RPA-4. Large temperature differences have been displayed between the most vegetated areas and more urbanized areas. Key-words: Land use; urban areas; vegetated area, remote sensing; MAXVER.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Galina Shinkareva ◽  
Oxana Erina ◽  
Maria Tereshina ◽  
Dmitriy Sokolov ◽  
Mikhail Lychagin

&lt;p&gt;The Moskva River catchment is a complex system consisting of a network of rivers affected by a wide variety of land- and water-use factors that create unique spatial and temporal patterns of their water quality. Major sources of anthropogenic impact on the Moskva River and its tributaries include multiple flow regulation structures on streams, direct pollution from municipal sewage and industrial wastewaters of Moscow megacity and smaller towns, runoff generated in agricultural areas and within multiple landfills located on the watershed, and many more. Only a short upstream section of the Moskva River remains relatively unchanged in terms of water runoff and geochemistry.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In 2019, we began a pioneering study focusing on collecting detailed field data on geochemistry of water, suspended matter and bottom sediments of the Moskva River and its major tributaries, including concentrations of nutrients, potentially toxic elements (PTEs), polyaromatic hydrocarbons and total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH). The main purpose of this project is to obtain a holistic picture of material fluxes within the river system combined with an inventory of natural and anthropogenic factors controlling them.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Our results indicate gradual increase of total dissolved solids, and content of nutrients and some PTEs (i.e., Cu) in water along the course of Moskva River. It can be linked to non-point pollution, as well as drastic changes occurring downstream Moscow and other urban areas caused by direct pollution. Massive increase of chloride, sulfate, sodium, mineral phosphorus, nitrogen, Mo and Sr concentrations in water is observed downstream outlets of Moscow wastewater treatment plants, which is characteristic of insufficiently treated urban sewage. Concentrations of nutrients and PTEs only slightly decrease downstream the city, remaining at levels often exceeding environmental guidelines up to the river&amp;#8217;s mouth, whereas increased concentrations of other pollutants, such as TPH, are more closely limited to urban areas and fade more quickly with distance from the source.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nutrient pollution of the Moskva River, as well as concentrations of some PTEs (i.e., Sb, Pb), steadily increased during summer low-flow period, when low dilution capacity limits biochemical self-purification. On the other hand, Mn, Co and Zn reached maximum concentrations during the spring flood due to their accumulation in city road dust and subsequent concentrated inflow with snowmelt runoff.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Moskva River tributaries that flow within close proximity to the metropolitan area were revealed to have significantly higher pollution levels than the Moskva River itself, indicating stronger anthropogenic stress.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Balance calculations performed on our database showed that during the flood the Mozhaysk Reservoir &amp;#8211; the single large reservoir on the Moskva River &amp;#8211; retains huge volumes of major elements and PTE, at times even greater than their subsequent input from urban areas downstream from the dam. It proves crucial role of the reservoir&amp;#8217;s retention capacity in the Moskva River&amp;#8217;s geochemical balance formation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Authors acknowledge Russian Geographical Society (project 28/2019-I), Russian Science Foundation (project 19-77-30004) and Russian Foundation for Basic Research (project 19-05-50109) for financial support.&lt;/p&gt;


Proceedings ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 62
Author(s):  
Zahra Kalantari ◽  
Johanna Sörensen

The densification of urban areas has raised concerns over increased pluvial flooding. Flood risk in urban areas might increase under the impact of land use changes. Urbanisation involves the conversion of natural areas to impermeable areas, causing lower infiltration rates and increased runoff. When high-intensity rainfall exceeds the capacity of an urban drainage system, the runoff causes pluvial flooding in low-laying areas. In the present study, a long time series (i.e., 20 years) of geo-referenced flood claims from property owners has been collected and analysed in detail to assess flood risk as it relates to land use changes in urban areas. The flood claim data come from property owners with flood insurance that covers property loss from overland flooding, groundwater intrusion through basement walls, as well as flooding from drainage systems; these data serve as a proxy of flood severity. The spatial relationships between land use change and flood occurrences in different urban areas were analysed. Special emphasis was placed on examining how nature-based solutions and blue-green infrastructure relate to flood risk. The relationships are defined by a statistical method explaining the tendencies whereby land use change affects flood risk.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (22) ◽  
pp. 9529
Author(s):  
Dohee Kim ◽  
Wonhyeop Shin ◽  
Heejoon Choi ◽  
Jihwan Kim ◽  
Youngkeun Song

Anthropogenic land use has led to the loss and fragmentation of native habitats and disruption to ecosystem processes, resulting in a decline in landscape connectivity and biodiversity. Here, in order to find the potentials of improvements in ecological connectivity, we provide a spatial analysis to present differences in ecological connectivity based on land cover maps and urban habitat maps in Suwon city, Republic of Korea. We generated two permeability maps for use in a network analysis, one being land cover and the other urban habitat, including a 5-km buffer area from the city boundary. We then determined the current-flow betweenness centrality (CFBC) for each map. Our results indicate that forests are typically the most highly connected areas in both maps. However, in the land cover map results, nearly all high-priority areas were in the mountainous region (CFBC value: 0.0100 ± 0.0028), but the urban habitat indicated that grasslands and rivers within the city also significantly contribute to connectivity (CFBC value: 0.0071 ± 0.0022). The CFBC maps developed here could be used as a reference when introducing green infrastructure in cities. Before establishing ecological networks for urban areas, future work should integrate the land use and ecological data of different administrative districts with continuous ecological connection.


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