Identifying the Main Urban Density Factors and Their Heterogeneous Effects on PM 2.5 Concentrations in High-Density Historic Neighborhoods from a Social-Biophysical Perspective: A Case Study in Beijing

Yi Wang, Haomiao Cheng (), Bin Cai and Fanding Xiang
Additional contact information
Yi Wang: College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100021, China
Haomiao Cheng: College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100021, China
Bin Cai: Key Laboratory of Beijing on Regional Air Pollution Control, Faculty of Environment and Life, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China
Fanding Xiang: Development and Reform Bureau of Wenjiang District Chengdu, Chengdu 611130, China

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 8, 1-27

Abstract: The contradiction between urban density and sustainable environmental development is increasingly prominent. Although numerous studies have examined the impact of urban density on air pollution at the macro level, most previous research at the micro scale has either neglected socioeconomic factors, failed to analyze heterogeneous effects, or ignored historic neighborhoods where high pollution coexists with high density. By considering population, commercial buildings, vegetation, and road factors, an integrated social-biophysical perspective was introduced to evaluate how urban density influences PM 2.5 concentration in a historic neighborhood. The study area was divided into 56 units of 120 m × 150 m granularity, as determined by the precision of the LBS population data. The lasso regression and quantile regression were adopted to explore the main factors affecting PM 2.5 and their heterogeneous effects. The results showed that (1) building density was the most important driving factor of pollutants. It had a strong and consistent negative effect on PM 2.5 concentrations at all quantile levels, indicating the homogeneity effect. (2) Short-term human mobility represented by the visiting population density was the second main factor influencing pollutants, which has a significantly positive influence on PM 2.5 . The heterogeneous effects suggested that the areas with moderate pollution levels were the key areas to control PM 2.5 . (3) Vegetation Patch Shape Index was the third main factor, which has a positive influence on PM 2.5 , indicating the complex vegetation patterns are not conducive to PM 2.5 dispersion in historic neighborhoods. Its heterogeneous effect presented a curvilinear trend, peaking at the 50th quantile, indicating that moderately polluted areas are the most responsive to improvements in vegetation morphology for PM 2.5 reduction. These findings can provide effective support for the improvement of air quality in historical neighborhoods of the city’s central area.

Keywords: density; PM 2.5; social-biophysical; heterogeneity; historic neighborhood (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/8/3309/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/8/3309/ (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:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:8:p:3309-:d:1630393

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

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