The level of pollution in Fayetteville is relatively low when compared to other cities that are similar in size. Arkansas as a whole is one of the cleanest states in the US. In the past decade, the air pollution in Arkansas has been lower than the federal limit while many other states surpass this limit. While the low level of air pollution in the state is good start, the level of air pollution has not continued to go down during these past few years. It sort of leveled out after seeing a 20% decrease in ozone. The chart below from the Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment outlines this in more detail. The row on the left looks specifically at Arkansas air quality, but the entire chart talks about different aspects of Arkansas air quality and things being done to improve it.
Despite these low levels of pollution, climate change has still had a large impact on the thermal comfort of people in Arkansas. In 2015, the Arkansas game and fish commission released a Wildlife Action Plan that outlined some of the ways that climate change had and would impact Arkansas. A few of the main things that they outlined were:
increased average temperature, especially in NWA
heat waves occurring more often
soil erosion caused by intense rainfall
increased number of people falling ill with insect-borne diseases and heat-related illnesses
The average temperature in Arkansas is expected to rise 4.9 to 5.1 degrees by 2050. This small number may seem like it wouldn't have that big of an impact, but humans have a very small window of conditions in which they are comfortable. Not to mention the environmental impacts this increase will have.
Zooming in: What about Fayetteville?
Fayetteville is actually one of the cleanest, if not the cleanest, cities in Arkansas. It has an Air Quality Index (AQI) score of 20 (on October 1st 2022) while the next cleanest city, Springdale, has a score of 41. The AQI is used to report the daily air quality for an area. It focuses on the health effects that the air may have short and long term.
What is Fayetteville doing to maintain these relatively low levels of air pollution?
The city of Fayetteville has put a heavy emphasis on bettering the natural environment through several different initiatives. The main one that relates to air pollution and thermal comfort is the Energy Action Plan adopted in 2018. The overall goal of this initiative is to decrease the Greenhouse Gas Emissions for activities in Fayetteville. To do this, the city created several sub-categories and goals that break down how the city is going to increase energy efficiency, transition to cleaner fuel sources, build more resilient local businesses, and more.
What types of pollution remain despite these efforts to decrease it?
Locating data about the specific sources of pollution in Fayetteville proved more difficult than I initially expected. People only really advertise that type of information when it is good. So based on what I could find, I inferred that the main sources of pollution comes from motor vehicles, wild fires, coal power generation, and agricultural production. There is a major interstate that pretty much runs through the center of Fayetteville that gets a lot of traffic made up of daily commuters, semi trucks, college students, and many other people traveling on it every day. To combat this within the city itself, the Razorback Greenway and other initiatives are being built to encourage active transport. Located near or adjacent to these main transportation arteries are normally commercial areas with residential areas behind them. The commercial areas seem to serve as a buffer between these residential areas and the main transportation areas. Arkansas is about 56% covered in trees so wild fires are a important topic for this area. Fayetteville specifically is 36% covered in tree canopy. The large percentage of forest in this area means a rather large potential for wild fires to start and spread causing a lot of destruction and pollution. Coal power generation was more difficult to find information on, but the heavy emphasis from the city to convert to clean energy indicates that this has a big impact on the area. While there isn't a lot of crop agriculture in this area, there is a lot of chicken farming. With the Tyson head quarters located just north in Springdale the number of chicken farms in the NWA region is much larger than one would expect.
Zooming In: What about the interior spaces I experience daily?
I live on the third floor of an apartment complex with 3 other people so I don't have a lot of independent control over the air quality or thermal comfort in this space. The main sources of indoor air pollution that I can think of has to do with the maintenance and construction of the building. This apartment complex was built to serve college students so it built fast and cheap. It is also almost impossible to get them to change the air filters in our apartment too. It takes a lot of complaining so I can only imagine what other corners they are cutting. The thermal conditions of the spaces are pretty good though. At school, I have no control over the air quality or thermal comfort. For example, one year I had a studio in the basement. This basement leaked a lot when it rained so that meant there was mold growing on the ceiling, but nothing was done to help this the entire semester. They did close that studio after that semester though to fix it so it no longer leaks. Another example, is my current studio has smelt like something died in the air vents for about a month, but nothing has been done to improve this situation. So the main issue with the air quality at school is the maintenance of the building. The heat and air is also very old so it is either on or off, there is very little in between. This means that in the winter it is a sauna in there.
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