Abstract
Inversions occur due to a complex system of energy exchange, geography, and weather patterns. Every winter in the Wasatch Front, Utah, air inversion traps air pollution from different sources causing nearly 2,000 premature deaths each year. The population in this region continues to grow and is predicted to double in the next thirty years. With a fast-growing population being forced to live in the relatively small space that the Wasatch Front region offers, managing the effects of the inversion becomes an important issue to be solved. One of the main sources of this pollution is emissions from vehicles. As the population grows, emissions being trapped by the inversion grow proportionally. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the impact of winter inversion, the role of road transportation, and possible solutions to this problem. Several solutions were proposed, including increasing electric vehicle infrastructure, raising public awareness of air pollution and health threats, encouraging public transportation use, expanding telework programs, and promoting walking and cycling.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
EPA: Fast Facts U.S. Transportation Sector Greenhouse Gas Emissions 1990–2018, United States Environmental Protection Agency (2020)
U. D. o. E. Qualitity. “Inversions.” Utah.gov (2021). https://deq.utah.gov/air-quality/inversions. Accessed 27 Feb 2021
Pope 3rd, C., Hill, R.W., Villegas, G.M.: Particulate air pollution and daily mortality on Utah’s Wasatch Front. Environ. Health Perspect. 107(7), 567–573 (1999)
EPA: Transportation Conformity Guidance for Quantitative Hot-spot Analyses in PM2.5 and PM10 Nonattainment and Maintenance Areas, ed. (2020)
Shaaban, K., Abou-Senna, H., Elnashar, D., Radwan, E.: Assessing the impact of converting roundabouts to traffic signals on vehicle emissions along an urban arterial corridor in Qatar. J. Air Waste Manag. Assoc. 69(2), 178–191 (2019)
Montes-González, D., Vílchez-Gómez, R., Barrigón-Morillas, J.M., Atanasio-Moraga, P., Rey-Gozalo, G., Trujillo-Carmona, J.: Noise and air pollution related to health in urban environments. Multi. Digital Publ. Inst. Proc. 2(20), 1311 (2018)
Ramondt,S., Zuniga, R.P., Van Bogart, B.K., Ramirez, A.S.: Public awareness of air pollution and health threats in the san joaquin valley: community perspectives on air quality communication. In: APHA 2016 Annual Meeting & Expo (29 Oct – 2 Nov 2016). American Public Health Association (2016)
Pascal, M., et al.: Assessing the public health impacts of urban air pollution in 25 European cities: results of the Aphekom project. Sci. Total Environ. 449, 390–400 (2013)
Electric Vehicle Charging Network Bill (2020)
Gochnour, N.: The Utah Roadmap: Positive Solutions on Climate and Air Quality. University of Utah, Jan 2020 (2020). https://gardner.utah.edu/wp-content/uploads/TheUtahRoadmap-Feb2020.pdf. Accessed 14 Feb 2021
Chin, Y.S.J., De Pretto, L., Thuppil, V., Ashfold, M.J.: Public awareness and support for environmental protection—a focus on air pollution in peninsular Malaysia. PLoS One 14(3), e0212206 (2019)
Wang, Y., Sun, M., Yang, X., Yuan, X.: Public awareness and willingness to pay for tackling smog pollution in China: a case study. J. Clean. Prod. 112, 1627–1634 (2016)
Shaaban, K., Maher, A.: Using the theory of planned behavior to predict the use of an upcoming public transportation service in Qatar. Case Stud. Transp. Policy 8(2), 484–491 (2019)
Shaaban, K.: Who is going to ride the upcoming metro in Qatar? In: Stanton, N. (ed.) AHFE 2018. AISC, vol. 786, pp. 671–675. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93885-1_61
Shaaban, K., Kim, I.: The influence of bus service satisfaction on university students’ mode choice. J. Adv. Transp. 50(6), 935–948 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1002/atr.1383
Shaaban, K., Khalil, R.F.: Investigating the customer satisfaction of the bus service in Qatar. Procedia. Soc. Behav. Sci. 104, 865–874 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.11.181
Shaaban, K., Hassan, H.: Modeling significant factors affecting Commuters’ perspectives and propensity to use the new proposed metro service in Doha. Can. J. Civ. Eng. 41(12), 1054–1064 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1139/cjce-2013-0595
Giovanis, E.: The relationship between teleworking, traffic and air pollution. Atmos. Pollut. Res. 9(1), 1–14 (2018)
Moeckel, R.: Working from home: modeling the impact of telework on transportation and land use. Transp. Res. Procedia 26, 207–214 (2017)
Kitou, E., Horvath, A.: External air pollution costs of telework. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 13(2), 155–165 (2008)
Kitou, E., Horvath, A.: Transportation choices and air pollution effects of telework. J. Infrastruct. Syst. 12(2), 121–134 (2006)
Belzer, D., Autler, G.: Transit oriented development: moving from rhetoric to reality. In: Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, Washington, DC (2002)
Lovasi, G.S., Grady, S., Rundle, A.: Steps forward: review and recommendations for research on walkability, physical activity and cardiovascular health. Public Health Rev. 33(4), 484 (2012)
Calthorpe, P.: The Next American Metropolis: Ecology, Community, and the American Dream. Princeton Architectural Press, New York (1993)
Schlossberg, M., Brown, N.: Comparing transit-oriented development sites by walkability indicators. Transp. Res. Rec. J. Transp. Res. Board 1887, 34–42 (2004)
Shaaban, K.: Assessing sidewalk and corridor walkability in developing countries. Sustainability 11(14), 3865 (2019)
Shaaban, K., Siam, A., Badran, A., Shamyah, M.: A simple method to assess walkability around metro stations. Int. J. Sustain. Soc. 10(1), 1–19 (2018)
Park, S., Choi, K., Lee, J.S.: To walk or not to walk: testing the effect of path walkability on transit users’ access mode choices to the station. Int. J. Sustain. Transp. 9(8), 529–541 (2015)
Bernick, M., Cervero, R.: Transit villages in the 21st century (1997)
Shaaban, K., Abdur-Rouf, K.: Development, validation, and application of school audit tool (SAT): an effective instrument for assessing traffic safety and operation around schools. Sustainability 11(22), 6438 (2019)
Shaaban, K., Abdur-Rouf, K.: Assessing walking and cycling around schools. Sustainability 12(24), 10607 (2020)
Shaaban, K.: Why don’t people ride bicycles in high-income developing countries, and can bike-sharing be the solution? the case of Qatar. Sustainability 12(4), 1693 (2020)
Pirozzi, C.S., Jones, B.E., VanDerslice, J.A., Zhang, Y., Paine, R., III., Dean, N.C.: Short-term air pollution and incident pneumonia. A case–crossover study. Ann. Am. Thorac. Soc. 15(4), 449–459 (2018)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Shaaban, K., Horrocks, I. (2021). Poor Air Quality Along the Wasatch Front During Inversions: Role of Road Transportation and Possible Solutions. In: Stanton, N. (eds) Advances in Human Aspects of Transportation. AHFE 2021. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 270. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80012-3_48
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80012-3_48
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-80011-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-80012-3
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)