Impact of a garden on Air Quality

[Joanne Taylor]

Hello Everybody,

I'm putting a proposal together for a community garden and I'm trying to work out the positives in terms of improving air quality for the general community, I know there are lots of variables but would anyone know the rough benefits per square metre?

I think from looking on line 1 square metre of plants can produce enough ongoing oxygen for 1 person. Would anyone have a comment on this and know how much heavy metals were removed by the same square metre of garden and how many harmful gases could be processed and how much dust could be caught (any anything else that might be relevant).

If anyone has any answers or can point me in the right direction I would be grateful.

Many Thanks

Joanne

 

[Becky]

Welcome to the forum

The Forestry Commission has done some research on the effect of increased vegetation in urban spaces - there's more about it here (although I'm not sure the scale of their work is what you're looking for):

https://www.forestry.gov.uk/fr/urgc-7edhqh

 

[MaryMary]

Most of what I found related more to growing trees in urban areas.

I know you are talking about a community garden, but I found these numbers for rooftop gardens. I'm not sure it's comparable, but it might be worth a read. (The link to the article is at the end of the quote.)

The level of air pollution removal by green roofs in Chicago was quantified using a dry deposition model. The result showed that a total of 1675 kg of air pollutants was removed by 19.8 ha of green roofs in one year with O3 accounting for 52% of the total, NO2 (27%), PM10 (14%), and SO2 (7%). The highest level of air pollution removal occurred in May and the lowest in February. The annual removal per hectare of green roof was 85 kg ha−1 yr−1. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222705703_Quantifying_air_pollution_removal_by_green_roofs_in_Chicago [accessed Apr 14 2018].

Welcome to the forum!

 

[Bootsy]

An interesting concept (haven't any idea about the answer to your question ) but what would the garden be replacing. If it's replacing an area of grass (for instance) you would need to take the difference into account.

 

[Joanne Taylor]

Thanks Becky, I think I'll reference the research case study in the link you posted.

Thanks also MaryMary - I'll need to do some conversions to kilometres and see if I can distil the info down to a single square metre and one person

Bootsy the garden would be replacing a disused service alleyway that is used by fly-tippers so mainly old mattresses, construction waste and household waste - so no greenery.

I found this link so will need to do some conversions to get it kilometres an kilograms

https://inhabitat.com/the-worlds-largest-vertical-garden-blooms-with-85000-plants-in-the-heart-of-bogota/

Thanks again for your help any other info you want to throw my way is most welcome.

Joanne

 

[Bootsy]

Bootsy the garden would be replacing a disused service alleyway that is used by fly-tippers so mainly old mattresses, construction waste and household waste - so no greenery.

Do you think the garden being there will stop the fly tipping?

 

[Joanne Taylor]

Hi Bootsy - not in isolation, the garden is part of a larger project which would also involve building property to block entrances and gates were property isn't possible. Also by claiming the land (which is a long process) prosecution for fly tipping becomes possible. At the moment the land is unregistered so its not clear if dumping rubbish actually is the offence of fly-tipping.

In case anyone is interested I settled on the below figures:

There are variables depending on the plants use but potentially 1 square metre of garden can:



•Produce enough on going oxygen for one person
•Process 250 grams of heavy metals per annum
•Filter 585 Kilograms of harmful gases per annum
•Catch130 grams of dust per annum


If anyone has any thoughts on the figures please feel free to let me know