The Importance Of Air Pollution In Urban Air Quality

The air pollution problem remains, although significant improvements have been seen in urban air quality over the last years. As a result of dense energy consumption, economic development with population growth and urbanization, levels of air pollutants have increased and emissions of many pollutants are growing especially in metropolitan areas. Urban population growth combined with change in land use through urban planning decisions is among major reasons for the air quality problem (Mayer, 1999). Dense buildings and population, different urban activities, the increasing automobiles ownership, and the total number of vehicles in traffic can be generalized as the primarily reasons air pollution that affects urban areas (Mansha et al., 2012). In addition to these urban activities, different factors are significant contributors to reduce of urban air quality such as the reliance on fossil fuels in warming, industrial activities and traffic; dependence on the private automobiles; inefficient use of energy in buildings and public transportation; the use of incorrect and incomplete combustion techniques; the degradation of open and green areas, etc. (Grsic et al., 2014, Dimitrovski et al., 2015, Bouhouras and Basbas, 2015). Air pollution in urban areas affects not only urban air quality, also quality of life, and public health directly (Deak et al., 2015), and these circumstances lead to shift in planning decisions.

Urban planning focuses on the use of land and design of the