Air Quality Improvement (Environmental Engineering)

Air Quality Improvement (Environmental Engineering)

Epidemiological studies show that air pollution costs thousands of deaths and leads to a number of health problems in Asian cities. This results in added healthcare costs and loss of productivity. The pollutants linked to urban transport that are typically health concerns are lead (Pb), dust (due to re-suspension), particulate matter (PM), oxides of nitrogen (NOX), and volatile organic compounds (VOC). Photochemical oxidant (ozone), another important pollutant, forms from NOx and VOCs in the presence of heat and sunlight. Of course transport is only one of the contributors to urban air pollution. But household cooking is switching to modern fuels (natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas, electricity); lower-quality industrial fuels like lignite, low-grade coals and dirty heavy diesel are being replaced by cleaner coals or oils and natural gas, and industries are being moved out of cities, so the role of transport grows dramatically. One important difference is that stationary sources of air pollution are easy to spot and regulate, and they often cause annoyance to the polluters themselves, while mobile sources like vehicles are harder to spot and regulate, and are rarely a cause for direct annoyance for the polluters. If you were mayor of Kuala Lumpur, what steps would you take to improve air quality in this city?