Urban Sprawl and Air Quality in European Cities: an Empirical Assessment

Arbeitspapier

In this paper we estimate the relationship between urban sprawl and a measure of air quality, namely the number of days in which the PM10 concentration exceeds safeguard limits in European Union cities. Building on a multidimensional representation of sprawl, the paper employs several indicators to account for built-up area development, population density, and residential discontinuity. The paper employs generalised additive models to disentangle the non-linear effects in the variables and the interaction effects of the three sprawl dimensions. A significant and robust effect of urban morphology emerges after controlling for socio-economic, demographic, and climatic factors and the geographical location of the city. We find that urban sprawl impacts positively on pollutant concentration, but the effect is highly context-specific because of threshold effects and interactions.

Show object

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Working Paper ; No. 007.2021

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling ; Land Use Patterns ; Single Equation Models; Single Variables: Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models; Quantile Regressions
• Subject: Air Pollution ; Urban Sprawl ; European Cities ; Additive Models

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Cappelli, Federica ; Guastella, Gianni ; Pareglio, Stefano
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM)
• (where): Milano
• (when): 2021

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/233092