Assessing urban planning resilience to outdoor air pollution in Greater Paris

Résumé En

A recent study reports that in 2012 around 3.7 million people died as a result of outdoor air pollution exposure (WHO, 2014). Cities are considered as hot spots and urban populations are particularly exposed. There is therefore an urgent need to adapt urban systems to improve air quality. While most European countries have put in measures to reduce emissions, actions still need to be done to reduce concentrations and exposure, and a holistic approach need to be conducted. The concept of urban resilience, defined by Holling (1987) as the ability of a city to absorb a disturbance while maintaining its functions and structures, may offer a new paradigm to tackle urban air pollution. We propose to adapt the concept of urban resilience to outdoor air pollution. A method has been developed to assess the resilience of urban systems to air pollution. Three capacities have been identified to study this resilience: the capacity of an urban system to decrease air pollution emissions, the capacity to decrease concentrations and the capacity to decrease exposure. This approach is based on the performance of the urban system at the city scale and focuses on an urban planning dimension. For each capacity, indicators are calculated in a Geographic Information System using a grid-based approach. This method has been implemented in the area of Greater Paris within a 500m grid. Greater Paris is one of the densest urban areas in Europe, and still experiences high air pollution levels. Initial results point out some issues and will help to find solutions to be implemented in order to improve the resilience of the Parisian metropolis in the future regarding air quality.