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Abstract:
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A land use regression (LUR) model for the
mapping of NO2 concentrations in Ottawa, Canada was created based on data from 29 passive air quality samplers from the City of Ottawa’s National Capital Air Quality
Mapping Project and two permanent stations. Model sensitivity was assessed against three spatial representations of population: population at the dissemination area level,
population at the dissemination block level and a dasymetrically derived population representation. A spatial database with land use, roads, population, zoning, greenspaces
and elevation was created. Polycategorical zoning data were used in dasymetric mapping to spatially focus population data derived from the dissemination blocks to a sub-block
level for comparison purposes. Dasymetric population mapping provided no significant LUR model improvement in explained variance when compared to block level population; however, both the former were significantly better than
the dissemination area level population representations. However, where block level population is not available or too costly to acquire, our method using polycategorical
zoning data provides a viable alternative in LUR modelling endeavours. |
