Pollutant dispersion in a group of courtyard buildings

Abstract

As stated by the World Health Organization (WHO), the air pollution in the urban environment is the silent cause for around seven million death worldwide. This is due to the indoor and outdoor exposure to various pollutants emitted in the built environment: as the global trend is an increase of the population living in towns, this issue is predicted to become even worser. As a matter of fact, the built environment can cause the trapping of pollutants instead of their dispersion. In this work, the dispersion of a plume of a pollutant (carbon monoxide, CO), emitted from a chimneystack above the roof of courtyard in a group of courtyards, is investigated. This is achieved employing the ENVI-met software, able to model, among the others, the turbulence and pollutant dispersion in the built environment. Results show, among the others, how the pollutant emitted from an upstream building can harm also the downstream buildings.