Impact of Land Use on PM(2.5) Pollution in a Representative City of Middle China

Fine particulate matter (PM(2.5)) pollution has become one of the greatest urban issues in China. Studies have shown that PM(2.5) pollution is strongly related to the land use pattern at the micro-scale and optimizing the land use pattern has been suggested as an approach to mitigate PM(2.5) pollution. However, there are only a few researches analyzing the effect of land use on PM(2.5) pollution. This paper employed land use regression (LUR) models and statistical analysis to explore the effect of land use on PM(2.5) pollution in urban areas. Nanchang city, China, was taken as the study area. The LUR models were used to simulate the spatial variations of PM(2.5) concentrations. Analysis of variance and multiple comparisons were employed to study the PM(2.5) concentration variances among five different types of urban functional zones. Multiple linear regression was applied to explore the PM(2.5) concentration variances among the same type of urban functional zone. The results indicate that the dominant factor affecting PM(2.5) pollution in the Nanchang urban area was the traffic conditions. Significant variances of PM(2.5) concentrations among different urban functional zones throughout the year suggest that land use types generated a significant impact on PM(2.5) concentrations and the impact did not change as the seasons changed. Land use intensity indexes including the building volume rate, building density, and green coverage rate presented an insignificant or counter-intuitive impact on PM(2.5) concentrations when studied at the spatial scale of urban functional zones. Our study demonstrates that land use can greatly affect the PM(2.5) levels. Additionally, the urban functional zone was an appropriate spatial scale to investigate the impact of land use type on PM(2.5) pollution in urban areas.