Sustainability and the Built Environment
Air Quality
One of the different features of the natural environment to consider when planning a construction project is air quality. Good air quality is an essential part of a healthy environment, large factories tend to be located away from populated areas to prevent air pollution and large chimneys guide the pollution further up into the atmosphere to avoid any fallout to local inhabitants. However events in history such as the ‘Great Smog of 1952’ made such an impact that the government at the time passed acts to control waste emissions into the atmosphere, one of these being The Clean Air Act 1956.
The clean air act of 1956 was an act passed in response to London’s great smog of 1952; it was in effect until 1964. The act introduced a number of measures to reduce air pollution, by shifting homes‘ sources of heat towards cleaner coals, electricity, and gas meant that the pollution in populated areas were dramatically reduced, on top of that it reduced the amount of smoke pollution and sulphur dioxide from household fires, It was also especially effective when it introduced smoke control areas in many towns and cities in which only smokeless fuels could be burnt. To reinforce these changes, the act also included measures to relocate power stations away from cities, and for the height of some chimneys to be increased.
The level of carbon dioxide emissions are firmly controlled with the present day government so the effects of global warming are not increased. Planting trees improves the air quality and is considered to be a justifiable part of any housing development however air quality obviously relies on geographical location for instance the centre of London will have a vastly poorer quality of air then the unpopulated areas of Scotland. There seems to be a pattern behind all of this and that is the more populated the area is, the shoddier the air quality.
Soil quality and natural drainage
There is no set benchmark for soil quality as no two soils are
One of the different features of the natural environment to consider when planning a construction project is air quality. Good air quality is an essential part of a healthy environment, large factories tend to be located away from populated areas to prevent air pollution and large chimneys guide the pollution further up into the atmosphere to avoid any fallout to local inhabitants. However events in history such as the ‘Great Smog of 1952’ made such an impact that the government at the time passed acts to control waste emissions into the atmosphere, one of these being The Clean Air Act 1956.
The clean air act of 1956 was an act passed in response to London’s great smog of 1952; it was in effect until 1964. The act introduced a number of measures to reduce air pollution, by shifting homes‘ sources of heat towards cleaner coals, electricity, and gas meant that the pollution in populated areas were dramatically reduced, on top of that it reduced the amount of smoke pollution and sulphur dioxide from household fires, It was also especially effective when it introduced smoke control areas in many towns and cities in which only smokeless fuels could be burnt. To reinforce these changes, the act also included measures to relocate power stations away from cities, and for the height of some chimneys to be increased.
The level of carbon dioxide emissions are firmly controlled with the present day government so the effects of global warming are not increased. Planting trees improves the air quality and is considered to be a justifiable part of any housing development however air quality obviously relies on geographical location for instance the centre of London will have a vastly poorer quality of air then the unpopulated areas of Scotland. There seems to be a pattern behind all of this and that is the more populated the area is, the shoddier the air quality.
Soil quality and natural drainage
There is no set benchmark for soil quality as no two soils are