Environmental Systems and Societies · Topic 8: Human populations and urban systems
ES8.3 — Urban air pollution
Environmental Systems and Societies · SL / HL · syllabus-mapped notes
Urban air pollutants: primary and secondary
The main pollutants from human activity, the PM2.5 and PM10 size classes, natural and anthropogenic sources, and the split between primary and secondary pollutants.
Managing urban air pollution
Management and intervention strategies that reduce urban air pollution, from public transport to catalytic converters.
Acid rain: formation, impacts and management
The chemistry that turns NOx and sulfur dioxide into acid rain, its impacts on ecology, humans and buildings, and strategies to reduce it.
HL: Photochemical smog
How sunlight turns NOx and VOCs into PANs and tropospheric ozone, and the meteorological and topographical factors, including temperature inversion, that intensify it.
HL: Impacts of tropospheric ozone
The direct biological and physical impacts of tropospheric ozone and its indirect societal and economic costs, borne unequally.