School of Mathematics

New research models the dispersion of pollutants in the streets of Manhattan

New research by Prof Jacques Vanneste of the School of Mathematics and Alexandra Tzella, formerly a postdoctoral researcher in the School and now a lecturer at the University of Birmingham, explains how pollutants would navigate streets in urban areas. The research, which is published in Physical Review Letters, uses a one-dimensional model of city streets to predict how a pollutant might spread if released in the city, taking into account wind and small-scale mixing. The research was selected to be the topic of an article published in the American Physical Society's Physics Central blog. Videos showing how pollutants would navigate the streets of Manhattan can be found here and here.