Reduction of Fine Dust and Alleviation of Heat Island Effect: An Analysis of Cold Air Flow in Pohang City, South Korea

Woonkun Jung and Gunwoo Kim ()
Additional contact information
Woonkun Jung: Graduate School of Urban Studies, Hanyang University, 222 Wangsimni-ro, Seongdong-gu, Seoul 04763, Republic of Korea
Gunwoo Kim: Graduate School of Urban Studies, Hanyang University, 222 Wangsimni-ro, Seongdong-gu, Seoul 04763, Republic of Korea

Land, 2024, vol. 13, issue 3, 1-32

Abstract: The urban heat island (UHI) effect poses a significant challenge for cities like Pohang, South Korea, which suffer from environmental pollution. Integrating a ventilation corridor into city planning can mitigate this issue. Despite wind’s potential as a resource for urban areas, its role remains under-studied in urban planning and design. To address this gap, this study analyzes the wind environment of Pohang City to identify effective strategies for reducing the UHI effect through the implementation of wind corridors, thereby enhancing the city’s thermal environment and sustainability. We used the KLAM_21 model to simulate and analyze the cold airflow. The results indicate that the land cover of Pohang, including residential and commercial areas, consists of urbanized dry areas. The wind direction over the past 10 years (2013–2022) has generally been west–southwest (247.5°). The cold air height and flow direction range expanded around the Hyeongsan River, eventually affecting the central city after 5 h. In the simulations, cold air accumulated above 30 m at specific locations near the valley’s base. After 2 h, the flow range of the cold air height increased. The green area ratio (GAR) and cold air speed positively correlated (+0.153). Thus, creating a wind-corridor forest could effectively address Pohang’s fine dust and UHI phenomena.

Keywords: Pohang-si; cold air; flow analysis; fine dust; urban heat island; wind corridor; KLAM_21 model; South Korea; correlation analysis; green area ratio (GAR) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/13/3/347/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/13/3/347/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:13:y:2024:i:3:p:347-:d:1353634

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().