The health concerns arising from lower air quality are more significant amongst lower-income communities which are more likely to be situated near heavily traffic-laden thoroughfares. Similarly, children are both more vulnerable to and more readily exposed to air pollution simply due to their proximity to the ground, where heavier pollutants settle over time.
Dr Tilly Collins, from Imperial College London’s Centre for Environmental Policy, found this issue particularly worrying, especially after noticing the severe pollution in the air while watching her child playing netball in a school playground alongside a busy London A-road.
And so she — alongside Dr Huw Woodward, also from the Centre for Environmental Policy, and Agamemnon Otero of Energy Garden — started researching the effect of walls along roads.
The result of their research, published in the journal Cities & Health, is a curved structure that could more effectively disperse and reflect pollutants back towards the roads and would very rapidly improve air quality for pedestrians in an inexpensive manner. The design is said to be inspired by airfield baffles and the curved sound-walls alongside motorways in Germany and the Netherlands.
Although there are challenges in implementing this sort of urban furniture, such as road visibility, the researchers are confident that the net gain in air quality and health is immediate and significant enough to warrant further exploration of these ideas.
Beyond air quality, these curved barriers would also mitigate noise pollution and would be able to act as scaffolds to increase green infrastructure throughout large cities.
Takeaway
The curved roadside barriers are inspired by airfield baffles and the curved sound-walls alongside motorways in Germany and the Netherlands. The team found that the structures would more effectively disperse and reflect pollutants back towards the roads. These structures would very rapidly and inexpensively improve air quality for pedestrians, according to the team.
In addition, the curved baffling barriers would also mitigate noise pollution and would be able to act as scaffolds to increase green infrastructure throughout large cities.
Action point
For city officials exploring roadside barriers perhaps it's time to rethink them and make them curved — instead of flat. According to researchers from the Imperial London College, such design would more effectively disperse and reflect pollutants back towards the roads — while also protecting pedestrians and people living next to busy roads from the noise. From what we can tell, this approach could be sold to the local public as both innovative and effective thus helping the person proposing it score some (political) points.
Companies looking to sell roadside barriers could learn from researchers working at the Imperial London College. They have found that making these barriers curved would more effectively disperse and reflect pollutants back towards the roads — while also protecting pedestrians and people living next to busy roads from the noise. From what we can tell, this approach could be sold to municipalities as both effective and innovative thus helping the person proposing it to score some (political) points.