Isakov Vlad, Venkatram Akula, Baldauf Richard, Deshmukh Parikshit, Zhang Max
Office of Research and Development, National Exposure Research Laboratory, US Environmental Protection Agency, 109 TW Alexander Drive, Research Triangle Park, NC 27711, USA.
Bourns College of Engineering, University of California, Bourns Hall A343, Riverside Riverside, CA 92521, USA.
Int J Environ Pollut. 2017;62(2):127-135. doi: 10.1504/IJEP.2017.10010370.
Traffic emissions are associated with the elevation of health risks of people living close to highways. Roadside vegetation barriers have the potential of reducing these risks by decreasing near-road air pollution concentrations. However, while we understand the mechanisms that determine the mitigation caused by solid barriers, we still have questions about how vegetative barriers affect dispersion. The US EPA conducted several field experiments to understand the effects of vegetation barriers on dispersion of pollutants near roadways (e.g., 2008 North Carolina study and 2014 California study) that indicate the reduction of near-road pollutant concentrations can be up to 30% due to the barrier effects. The results of these field studies are being used to develop and evaluate dispersion models that account for the effects of near-road vegetative barriers. These models can be used for evaluating the effectiveness of vegetation barriers as a potential mitigation strategy to reduce exposure to traffic-related pollutants and their associated adverse health effects. This paper presents the results of the analysis of the field studies and discusses dispersion models being used to describe the data in order to simulate the effects of near-road barriers and to develop recommendations for model improvements.
交通排放与居住在高速公路附近人群的健康风险升高有关。路边植被屏障有可能通过降低道路附近的空气污染浓度来降低这些风险。然而，虽然我们了解决定固体屏障缓解效果的机制，但对于植被屏障如何影响扩散仍存在疑问。美国环境保护局进行了多项实地实验，以了解植被屏障对道路附近污染物扩散的影响（例如，2008年北卡罗来纳州的研究和2014年加利福尼亚州的研究），这些研究表明，由于屏障效应，道路附近污染物浓度的降低幅度可达30%。这些实地研究的结果正被用于开发和评估考虑道路附近植被屏障影响的扩散模型。这些模型可用于评估植被屏障作为一种潜在缓解策略的有效性，以减少接触与交通相关的污染物及其相关的不良健康影响。本文介绍了实地研究的分析结果，并讨论了用于描述数据的扩散模型，以便模拟道路附近屏障的影响并提出模型改进建议。
