Elucidation of spatial disparities of factors that affect air pollutant concentrations in industrial regions at a continental level

Abstract

Industrial regions and relevant infrastructures are known to contribute to air pollutant emissions; thus, a detailed investigation of the air pollutant concentrations of a region based on specific land uses, with spatial reasoning, can support smart regional planning. However, the current knowledge about the spatial patterns that indicate the relationship between the anthropological or environmental features and the air pollutant concentrations in industrial regions is limited. Thus, in this study, we aimed to identify the factors that affect air-pollutant concentrations due to local spatial impacts in industrial regions across Australia. Considering the large spatial scale, the impact of a global factor can be overwhelmed by another factor due to local spatial impacts, and the phenomenon is a kind of spatial disparity. We developed a novel set of methods, including a point-of-interests-based spatial identification method and geographically weighted regression (with standardised coefficients), to: (i) identify the industrial regions in the study area, (ii) collect the remote sensing factors, and (iii) identify the factors that affect the spatial disparity of air-pollutant concentrations in industrial regions. The results indicated a significant spatial disparity in the air pollutant concentrations in the industrial region, at a continental scale. Anthropogenic factors significantly affected the spatial patterns of air pollutant concentrations in the industrial regions that were remote to cities, whereas meteorological and topographical factors had significant impacts on the air pollutant distributions in urban industrial regions. Furthermore, within the nationwide industrial lands, drives of the relatively high concentrations of ozone and sulphur dioxide, the drivers of the air pollutant concentrations were environmental factors; high concentrations of nitrogen dioxide were more associated with the topographical features of the region. The methods proposed in this study can serve as a reliable framework for analysing the air quality of industrial regions and can also, supplement future studies on emissions reduction in industrial parks.