Every year, the percentage of people who live in urban areas increases. As the urban population continues to grow, more and more pollutants are put into these urban environments. This is an increasingly worrying issue, as air pollution currently is a huge health risk, and globally has shortened the average lifespan by years. Looking towards solutions, researchers have found that large green spaces can reduce the amount of air pollutants, and lower death rates of diseases caused by air pollution. They found that large green spaces lower the mortality of both pneumonia and chronic lower respiratory diseases through the reduction of air pollutants.
Though green spaces can help air pollution and its related illnesses, it is only large green spaces that have this effect. Researchers found that fragmentation of green areas can actually increase the mortality rates of pneumonia and chronic lower respiratory diseases. Small, fragmented green spaces actually cause an increase in air pollutants, which is an important fact when designing city green spaces. Traditionally the total amount of green space has been emphasized over the size of each individual green space, and the data suggest this policy is actually leading to an increase in pollutants. Moving forward it is not only important that cities add green spaces, but that these green spaces are significant enough in size to provide respiratory health benefits.
"The public should be educated or made aware of the health benefits of maximizing the largest green patch percentage and minimizing fragmentation of green spaces, which may motivate them to achieve that in their communities and living environment"
Shen, YS., Lung, SC. Mediation pathways and effects of green structures on respiratory mortality via reducing air pollution. Sci Rep7, 42854 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep42854