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Investigating the Urban Air Quality Effects of Cool Walls and Cool Roofs in Southern California
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    Investigating the Urban Air Quality Effects of Cool Walls and Cool Roofs in Southern California
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    • Jiachen Zhang
      Jiachen Zhang
      Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089, United States
    • Yun Li
      Yun Li
      Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089, United States
      More by Yun Li
    • Wei Tao
      Wei Tao
      Multiphase Chemistry Department, Max-Planck-Institute for Chemistry, Hahn-Meitner-Weg 1, 55128 Mainz, Germany
      More by Wei Tao
    • Junfeng Liu
      Junfeng Liu
      Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, P. R. China
      More by Junfeng Liu
    • Ronnen Levinson
      Ronnen Levinson
      Heat Island Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, United States
    • Arash Mohegh
      Arash Mohegh
      Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089, United States
      More by Arash Mohegh
    • George Ban-Weiss*
      George Ban-Weiss
      Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089, United States
      *Phone: 213-740-9124; e-mail: [email protected]
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    Environmental Science & Technology

    Cite this: Environ. Sci. Technol. 2019, 53, 13, 7532–7542
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    https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.9b00626
    Published May 24, 2019
    Copyright © 2019 American Chemical Society

    Abstract

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    Solar reflective cool roofs and walls can be used to mitigate the urban heat island effect. While many past studies have investigated the climate impacts of adopting cool surfaces, few studies have investigated their effects on air pollution, especially on particulate matter (PM). This research for the first time investigates the influence of widespread deployment of cool walls on urban air pollutant concentrations, and systematically compares cool wall to cool roof effects. Simulations using a coupled meteorology-chemistry model (WRF-Chem) for a representative summertime period show that cool walls and roofs can reduce urban air temperatures, wind speeds, and planetary boundary heights in the Los Angeles Basin. Consequently, increasing wall (roof) albedo by 0.80, an upper bound scenario, leads to maximum daily 8-h average ozone concentration reductions of 0.35 (0.83) ppbv in Los Angeles County. However, cool walls (roofs) increase daily average PM2.5 concentrations by 0.62 (0.85) μg m–3. We investigate the competing processes driving changes in concentrations of speciated PM2.5. Increases in primary PM (elemental carbon and primary organic aerosols) concentrations can be attributed to reductions in ventilation of the Los Angeles Basin. Increases in concentrations of semivolatile species (e.g., nitrate) are mainly driven by increases in gas-to-particle conversion due to reduced atmospheric temperatures.

    Copyright © 2019 American Chemical Society

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    Supporting Information

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    The Supporting Information is available free of charge on the ACS Publications website at DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.9b00626.

    • Model evaluation, description of the simulated period, and further detail on results. (PDF)

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    This article is cited by 29 publications.

    1. Cheng He, Junri Zhao, Yan Zhang, Li He, Youru Yao, Weichun Ma, Patrick L. Kinney. Cool Roof and Green Roof Adoption in a Metropolitan Area: Climate Impacts during Summer and Winter. Environmental Science & Technology 2020, 54 (17) , 10831-10839. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.0c03536
    2. Kyeongjoo Park, Jong-Jin Baik. Nonlinear changes in urban heat island intensity, urban breeze intensity, and urban air pollutant concentration with roof albedo. Scientific Reports 2024, 14 (1) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-76935-4
    3. Z. Eren, Ü. A. Şahin, S. Toy. The evaluation of forty years of air quality and trend of air pollutants in Erzurum City. International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology 2024, 21 (15) , 9425-9446. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-024-05614-8
    4. Qingman Li, Xuelin Zhang, Jian Hang. Numerical investigations of cool coatings on building envelopes for urban heat mitigation with various street aspect ratios. Sustainable Cities and Society 2024, 107 , 105410. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2024.105410
    5. Doğan Dursun, Merve Yavaş. Ekolojik Koridorların Mikro İklim ve Hava Kirliliği Dağılımı Üzerindeki Etkisinin Belirlenmesi; Erzurum Örneği. İDEALKENT 2024, 16 (43) , 180-218. https://doi.org/10.31198/idealkent.1410063
    6. Dipak Kumar Mandal, Sharmistha Bose, Nirmalendu Biswas, Nirmal K. Manna, Erdem Cuce, Ali Cemal Benim. Solar Chimney Power Plants for Sustainable Air Quality Management Integrating Photocatalysis and Particulate Filtration: A Comprehensive Review. Sustainability 2024, 16 (6) , 2334. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16062334
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    13. Jinghao Xiao. Impact of particulate pollutant emissions from combustion of civil briquettes on air quality. Applied Nanoscience 2023, 13 (2) , 1635-1646. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13204-021-02067-0
    14. Haochen Tan, Rao Kotamarthi, Jiali Wang, Yun Qian, T.C. Chakraborty. Impact of different roofing mitigation strategies on near-surface temperature and energy consumption over the Chicago metropolitan area during a heatwave event. Science of The Total Environment 2023, 860 , 160508. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.160508
    15. Kyle Reed, Fengpeng Sun. Investigating the potential for cool roofs to mitigate urban heat in the Kansas City metropolitan area. Climate Dynamics 2023, 60 (1-2) , 461-475. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-022-06296-z
    16. Fan Wang, Gregory R. Carmichael, Xiaorui Zhang, Xiang Xiao, Meng Gao. Pollution severity-regulated effects of roof strategies on China’s winter PM2.5. npj Climate and Atmospheric Science 2022, 5 (1) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-022-00278-y
    17. Jaykumar Joshi, Akhilesh Magal, Vijay S. Limaye, Prima Madan, Anjali Jaiswal, Dileep Mavalankar, Kim Knowlton. Climate change and 2030 cooling demand in Ahmedabad, India: opportunities for expansion of renewable energy and cool roofs. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 2022, 27 (7) https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-022-10019-4
    18. Joseph Ko, Hannah Schlaerth, Alexandra Bruce, Kelly Sanders, George Ban-Weiss. Measuring the impacts of a real-world neighborhood-scale cool pavement deployment on albedo and temperatures in Los Angeles. Environmental Research Letters 2022, 17 (4) , 044027. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac58a8
    19. Zhi-Hua Wang. Reconceptualizing urban heat island: Beyond the urban-rural dichotomy. Sustainable Cities and Society 2022, 77 , 103581. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2021.103581
    20. R. K. Mall, Nidhi Singh, Subhi Patel, Saumya Singh, Aman Arora, R. Bhatla, R. S. Singh, P. K. Srivastava. Climate Changes over the Indian Subcontinent: Scenarios and Impacts. 2022, 27-52. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16254-1_2
    21. Zhi-Hua Wang. Compound environmental impact of urban mitigation strategies: Co-benefits, trade-offs, and unintended consequence. Sustainable Cities and Society 2021, 75 , 103284. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2021.103284
    22. Chloe Celniker, Sharon Chen, Alan Meier, Ronnen Levinson. Targeting buildings for energy-saving cool-wall retrofits: a case study at the University of California, Davis. Energy and Buildings 2021, 249 , 111014. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2021.111014
    23. Farouk F. Daghistani. Solar chimney street-lighting pole for ventilating polluted urban areas. Sustainable Cities and Society 2021, 72 , 103057. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2021.103057
    24. Jihui Yuan, Craig Farnham, Kazuo Emura. Effect of different reflection directional characteristics of building facades on outdoor thermal environment and indoor heat loads by CFD analysis. Urban Climate 2021, 38 , 100875. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2021.100875
    25. E Scott Krayenhoff, Ashley M Broadbent, Lei Zhao, Matei Georgescu, Ariane Middel, James A Voogt, Alberto Martilli, David J Sailor, Evyatar Erell. Cooling hot cities: a systematic and critical review of the numerical modelling literature. Environmental Research Letters 2021, 16 (5) , 053007. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abdcf1
    26. Katarzyna Rędzińska, Monika Piotrkowska. Urban Planning and Design for Building Neighborhood Resilience to Climate Change. Land 2020, 9 (10) , 387. https://doi.org/10.3390/land9100387
    27. Junyan Yang, Beixiang Shi, Yi Zheng, Yi Shi, Geyang Xia. Urban form and air pollution disperse: Key indexes and mitigation strategies. Sustainable Cities and Society 2020, 57 , 101955. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2019.101955
    28. Nidhi Singh, Saumya Singh, R.K. Mall. Urban ecology and human health: implications of urban heat island, air pollution and climate change nexus. 2020, 317-334. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-820730-7.00017-3
    29. Yun Li, Jiachen Zhang, David J. Sailor, George A. Ban-Weiss. Effects of urbanization on regional meteorology and air quality in Southern California. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 2019, 19 (7) , 4439-4457. https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-4439-2019

    Environmental Science & Technology

    Cite this: Environ. Sci. Technol. 2019, 53, 13, 7532–7542
    Click to copy citationCitation copied!
    https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.9b00626
    Published May 24, 2019
    Copyright © 2019 American Chemical Society

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