Mechanism of the Effect of Urban Form and Land Use on Transportation and Air Pollution in Tehran

 Air pollution is one of the major challenges of urban management in Tehran. Nowadays, the problem of air pollution and traffic congestion in the metropolis of Tehran, like most major cities in the world, is quite concerning. Land use and transportation are two main sectors that have a maximum contribution to environmental pollution.

The impetus of this article is to investigate the urban land use efficiency, the distribution of land use, and their impact on transportation and pollutants. For this purpose, the following question was raised: What has been the impact of urban land-use efficiency and distribution of land use in Tehran on transportation and air pollution over the last two decades?

The present paper is a real-life case study for which data was collected through documentary-library, municipal data, and satellite images. In this study, Landsat satellite images, ENVI 5.3, ArcGIS 10.8, Google Earth Pro, and SPSS 24 were used.

The results of this study indicate the expansion of Tehran, the loss of vegetation,and their transformation into built lands. Over the past two decades, the growth of the built-up area in Tehranhas exceeded the population growth which indicates the inefficiency of the land during this period. In other words, the expansion of the city has been more towards the suburbs with low population density. The study of the correlation between land use types during the period 2004-2016 indicates the scattered growth of Tehran. In such situations, residents use more private cars, which increases traffic congestion, fuel consumption, and air pollution.