A Health Damage Pattern Due to Street-Level Pollution in the Central Paris Area Estimated With a Turbulence-Resolving Model

Urban health damage patterns essentially depend on the distribution and persistence of the pollution concentrations within the urban canopy layer. This study utilizes the turbulence-resolving large-eddy simulation model and the real urban surface morphology of the central Paris area to compute the concentration fields with the horizontal resolution of 50 m. The simulations have been completed for the climatologically most typical conventionally neutral atmospheric conditions. The simulated pollution was assumed to be constant and emitted by the street-level road traffic. The normalized health damage map for the central Paris has been obtained on the basis of the simulated concentration field and the real population census for the Paris arrondissements. The damage pattern was found fairly insensitive to the atmospheric conditions and the wind direction. The large-scale structure of the damage pattern compares qualitatively well with empirical studies in Paris and Helsinki. The largest damage is found North of the river and especially in the 1st through 5th arrondissements. The statistical regressions between the aggregated concentration and features of the aggregated urban surface morphology have been calculated. The largest regression coefficient is found for the mean building height whereas the street area fraction and the root mean square of the building heights are of lesser importance.