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In this study, the characteristics of flows around building groups are investigated using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. For this, building groups with different volumetric ratios in a fixed area are considered. As the volumetric ratio of the building group increases, the region affected by the building group is widened. However, the wind-speed reduced area rather decreases with the volumetric ratio near the ground bottom (z 0.7H, here, H is the height of the building group) and, above 0.7H, it increases. As the volumetric ratio decreases (that is, space between buildings was widened), the size of recirculation region decreases but flow recovery is delayed, resulting in the wider wind-speed reduced area. The increase in the volumetric ratio results in larger drag force on the flow above the roof level, consequently reducing wind speed above the roof level. However, above z 1.7H, wind speed increases with the volumetric ratio for satisfying mass conservation, resultantly increasing turbulent kinetic energy there. Inside the building groups, wind speed decreased with the volumetric ratio and averaged wind speed is parameterized in terms of the volumetric ratio and background flow speed. The parameterization method is applied to producing averaged wind speed for 80 urban areas in 7 cities in Korea, showing relatively good performance.

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The impact of crop residue burning in northeastern China on South Korean PM2.5 concentrations was assessed via weather conditions, air quality modeling (AQM), and PM2.5 composition data during two cases exceeding 35 µg·m−3 in November 2015. PM2.5 concentration simulations of Case 1 differed from observations by 3.7–17.6 µg·m−3, overestimating the levels by 6–36%; however, Case 2 varied by 20.0–59.8 µg·m−3 from observations, with a 53–91% underestimation. Case 1 was generally well simulated, whereas the Case 2 simulation failed because the emissions of crop residue burning in northeastern China, as confirmed through satellite analysis (MODIS fires and thermal anomalies) and previous research, were not considered. The portion of organic/elemental carbon ratio during Case 2 was 1.6–2.3 times higher than that of Case 1. These results suggest that it is necessary to consider the effects of crop residue burning in northeast China to establish countermeasures to improve air quality and air quality forecasting in South Korea.