Spatial Modelling of Urban Mobility Induced Air Pollution: A Case Study of Istanbul

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2022-11-22
Şenay Boyacı, Revnak
Air pollution can be defined as the increase of pollutants in the atmosphere to the levels that are harmful to humans, other living organisms and the environment which occurs during production and consumption activities. The problem of air pollution is increasing all over the world as a result of various factors such as drought, topographic conditions, inversion and climatic characteristics, as well as reasons such as population growth in cities, increasing urbanization and industrialization. Similar to the world, rising energy demand with population increase, changes in consumption patterns and technological development makes air pollution to be an alarming problem in Turkey. Air pollution is a serious issue that maintains its importance for societies, and it is of great importance to measure air quality, determine the level of air quality, measure its spatial distribution and reveal the pollution sources. Urban mobility, one of the main factors that results in air pollution in cities, was limited by the restrictions applied within the scope of the measures taken to prevent the COVID-19 pandemic all over the world. This situation has created a suitable experimental environment to measure the effect of urban mobility on air quality in cities. In this thesis, the spatial distribution of air pollution caused by urban mobility in Istanbul, which is the most populated city in Turkey, is examined over time. The spatial distributions of major pollutants caused by mobility is modeled with Kriging, a geo-statistical estimation method, and compared for 2019 and 2020, the year curfews took place due to the Covid-19 pandemic. With the decrease in urban mobility, decreases have been observed in the levels of mobility-related pollutants for different time periods of the year. It has been determined that the areas where decreases are observed the most are the ones with heavy vehicle traffic where pollution levels had been the highest prior to curfews.

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Citation Formats
R. Şenay Boyacı, “Spatial Modelling of Urban Mobility Induced Air Pollution: A Case Study of Istanbul,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2022.