Prof.  Hai  Guo
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University,  China

Title: How can air quality benefit from sustainable urban construction and transportation development in the context of climate change?

Abstract:

Urban construction and renewal are expanding to meet the needs of economic development and population growth. Hong Kong is planning and constructing Northern Metropolitan Circle on undeveloped land and renewal projects in existing urban areas. However, uncontrolled expansion and renewal may lead to a stuffy environment, resulting in accumulation of air pollutants and formation of secondary air pollutants (SAP), i.e. ozone (O₃) and secondary organic aerosols (SOA). These problems may be further exacerbated by climate change. Although many studies have investigated effects of building height and/or density on street ventilation, air quality at different heights around tall buildings remains under-explored. Particularly, concentrations of SAP may increase with height because air at higher locations is more aged. To address the issue, multiple sampling points will be deployed at various heights to measure meteorological parameters and air pollutants, i.e. O₃, SOA and their precursors. A photochemical box model will be applied to study chemical processes of pollutants. Moreover, a computational fluid dynamics model will be employed to characterize airflow field and dispersion of air pollutants at different building heights. Vertical distributions of primary and secondary air pollutants along high-rise buildings in urban renewal will be obtained. Meanwhile, observations and simulations of building parameters will be applied to new urban areas to forecast air quality around projected buildings. Updated land use information will be retrieved from the Planning Department, satellite data and measurements as initial conditions for regional-scale model simulations.

Keywords: 1) Air quality; 2) Urban renewal; 3) New metropolitan construction; 4) Green transportation; 5) Climate change

Biography:

Professor Hai Guo completed his PhD study in Australia. He is currently a Professor in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) and Air Lab in charge. He is the Changjiang Scholar Chair Professor and the Fellow of Hong Kong Institution of Engineers. Prof. Guo’s research interests include atmospheric chemistry, organic aerosols and their precursors, ozone pollution, bioaerosol transmission and indoor chemistry. He is among the first to have developed a photochemical trajectory model and a photochemical box model to understand atmospheric ozone formation in Asia. He is also the first person in Hong Kong to establish a world-class laboratory instrument system to analyse trace volatile organic compounds (VOCs). He has developed offline and semi-online samplers for measuring ambient acidic ultrafine particles. Prof. Guo is an investigator of more than 70 research projects. He has published more than 190 papers, with an h-index of 60 on Google scholar with total citation of ~12,300, and 55 on Scopus. He has been ranked the World’s Top 2% Highly Cited Scientist in Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences in 2020-2022. Prof. Guo is the VOC expert group member of the World Meteorological Organization – Global Atmosphere Watch. He is the Chairman of the International Expert Workshop on VOCs 2023. Furthermore, Prof. Guo is Associate Editor of Science of the Total Environment, and Editor of Aerosol and Air Quality Research. Prof. Guo has won many prizes including a second prize of natural science issued by China’s Ministry of Education, first prize of science and technology in Guangdong province, golden medal and a special merit award at the 71st International Trade Fair for Ideas, Inventions & New Products in Germany, Winner of the Australia China Alumni Awards for Research and Science, and eight-time Dean awards for outstanding research and publication at PolyU. Prof. Guo has given plenary, keynotes, and invited speeches in many international conferences and been a member of Scientific Advisor Committee in many conferences.