Impacts of ambient air pollution on UNESCO world cultural heritage sites in Eastern Asia: Dose-response calculations for material corrosions
Broomandi P. Jahanbakhshi A. Fathian A. Darynova Z. Janatian N. Nikfal A. Kim J.R. Karaca F.
December 2022Elsevier B.V.
Urban Climate
2022#46
Air pollution adversely affects the built environment. This impact might accelerate the natural deterioration rate of heritage sites and reduce their aesthetic value. This novel study uses multipollutant dose-response functions to investigate the erosion rate of cultural heritage materials in 37 cities in East Asian counties, including China, Japan, and South Korea, between 2015 and 2020. The air quality improved in the studied cities during the study period owing to the efficiency of newly implemented clean air policies. For example, air quality improved regardless of relatively unfavorable meteorological conditions in Japan. Overall, there is a decreasing trend in the surface recession rate of studied heritage materials in China, Japan, and South Korea. However, the results suggest that the cultural heritage resources in Asian cities are still at risk. For example, China experienced the highest estimated degradation rates. Random Forest analysis showed that HNO3, SO2, and PM10 are the primary compounds influencing the corrosion of the built environment materials with a relative importance of 0.42, 0.51, and 0.55, respectively. The results suggest that to preserve sensitive cultural heritage features in the studied cities successfully additional measures are required to reduce atmospheric pollution.
Air pollution , Atmospheric corrosion , Clean air policies , Cultural heritage preservation , Multi-pollutant risk assessment
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Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering and Digital Sciences, Environment and Resource Efficiency Cluster (EREC), Nazarbayev University, Kabanbay Batyr Ave. 53, Nur-Sultan, 010000, Kazakhstan
Lancaster Environmental Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YQ, United Kingdom
Neotectonics and Natural Hazards Institute, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
Water, Sediment, Hazards, and Earth-surface Dynamics (waterSHED) Lab, Department of Geoscience, University of Calgary, Canada
Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Lorraine, Nancy, France
Chair of Hydrobiology and Fishery, Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Estonian University of Life Sciences, Tartu, Estonia
Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
Atmospheric Science and Meteorological Research Centre, Tehran, Iran
Department of Chemical Engineering, Masjed-Soleiman Branch, Islamic Azad University, Masjed-Soleiman, Iran
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Lancaster Environmental Centre
Neotectonics and Natural Hazards Institute
Water
Faculty of Science and Technology
Chair of Hydrobiology and Fishery
Department of Evolutionary Biology
Atmospheric Science and Meteorological Research Centre
Department of Chemical Engineering
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