Beijing tackles air pollution by shifting the muck around.
Beijing is planning a network of “ventilation corridors” to promote air flow and blow smpg away. Five main corridors will be 800 m wide and minor ones will be 80 m wide according to Wang Fei, deputy head of Beijing’s urban planning committee. Five main corridors are proposed. Peng Yingdeng, air pollution expert at Beijing Municipal Research Institute of Environmental Protection, advised the Beijing News that the plan was not for large-scale demolition or construction, but it was more an adjustment of current regulations to limit building heights and densities in specified areas. Beijing’s plan is to reduce air pollution levels by 40% by 2020.
source: http://www.bjnews.com.cn/news/2014/11/21/342614.html
Robert Holden is a London-based landscape architect who read architecture & landscape architecture at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. On graduating he worked for the Dutch Staatsbosbeheer (State Forestry Service) on a visual survey of Oostelijk Flevoland and for Allain Provost in Paris on recreation planning of the French coastline east of Dunkerque. In London he has worked for Derek Lovejoys (1971-75) and Clouston (1976-89) including extensive work in the Middle East. • In the 1980s he was particularly known for his work on business park masterplanning such as Aztec West near Bristol, Capability Green Luton and Colchester Business Park. He was a Clouston director responsible for bureau d’étude work at EuroDisneyland in 1988-9; • since the 1990s he has been involved in smaller practices (including Clifton Design 1990-91 and Holden Liversedge 1991-99), and Cracknell Ferns (1999-2009). • projects have included work in France, Germany, Kuwait, Libya, The Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Spain, UAE, and Russia as well as the UK. • he was lecturer, latterly Head of Landscape & postgraduate landscape architecture programme leader at the University of Greenwich, 1992-2013. • Currently he serves on the Landscape Institute Council having previously served 1983-86; he was Education Vice President of the European Foundation for Landscape Architecture (2001-4) & from 2005-2008 was EFLA Secretary General. EFLA is now IFLA Europe. • From Feb.-June 2014 he undertook a Tübitak (Turkish Science Research Council) scholarship, at Istanbul Technical University, looking as sustainability & public domain in Istanbul. In 2015 he taught at Corvinus University on their MLA. Interests include sustainability & landscape architecture, post industrial landscapes, landscape construction, the European landscape profession, and aspects of C18th landscape gardening, especially the ferme ornée. HIs latest book (joint with Jamie Liversedge) is "Landscape Architecture as a Career": Laurence King (Feb. 2014) in English and Spanish.
ON 21 Feb, Xinhua (the Chinese news agency) advised “Beijing and its neighboring cities will start using uniform criteria when they issue pollution alerts by the end of March, the capital’s environmental protection bureau said on Sunday. Alerts will be categorized by Air Quality Index (AQI) readings. A red alert will be issued when the daily average AQI is forecast to rise above 500 for a day or longer. A red alert can also be issued when the daily average is forecast to climb above 200 for four straight days or longer, or when the daily average exceeds 300 for two days or longer. Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Province employ different criteria for issuing pollution alerts. For instance, in Beijing, a red alert is issued when AQI exceeds 200 for more than three days, while in Tianjin and Hebei, a red alert is triggered only when AQI exceeds 500 for at least one day. The uniform alert raises the criteria for issuing an orange alert or a red alert for Beijing while tightening air pollution regulation for cities in Hebei, said Liu Wei, deputy head of the emergency response office at the environmental protection bureau<.” http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-02/21/c_135117748.htm
AQI is a measure of air measure originally devised by the US Environmental Protection Agency and covers several pollutants on a non-linear scale, e.g. PM2.5/ PM10 (particulates), O3 (ozone), NO2 (Nitrogen dioxide), SO2 (Sulphur dioxide) CO (Carbon monoxide) . Beijing has issued two red alerts for smog since the start of this winter, with closures of schools and bans on outdoor construction. To see the hourly monitoring of AQU in Bejing, see http://aqicn.org/city/beijing/