Urbanization and its effect on air pollution in Atux City

Urbanization is a necessary precondition to industrialization and eradication of poverty.Being a vital criterion of assessing a nation's or a particular region's modernization level,it has been accelerated all over the world in the 21st century.Urbanization not only can increase the speed of regional modernization,but also has some effects on eco-environment.Therefore,many scholars have paid more and more attention to urbanization phenomenon since the end of last century and the close relationship between urbanization and eco-environment has been emphasized by a number of studies.With the assist of theories and research findings put forward by both home and foreign scholars,this paper analyses the urbanization process and its effect on air pollution in Atux City,Xinjiang,which is a typical oasis City in arid land,by selecting 7 urbanization indices and 4 air pollution indices and constructing their relationship model.The results show as follows:(1) Atux City has been experienced rapid urbanization since the economic reforms in 1978,especially during 1990-2008.Urbanization level of Atux City was increased almost 10 points in this 18 years.During this period,the integrated index of urbanization in Atux City shows an increasing trend;(2) During 1990-2008,concentration of pollutants such as SO2,nitrogen oxides,TSP and dust in Atux City shows a fluctuating trend,however TSP is the main pollution component.The integrated index of air pollution shows an inverted U-shaped changing tendency.(3) We construct cubic polynomial model of the relationship between urbanization and air pollution in Atux City by using time serial data during 1990-2008,and find that the imitation curve of urbanization and air pollution in Atux City shows a not inverted U-shaped relationship,with being an N-shaped relationship.We believe that air pollution phenomenon caused by rapid urbanization in Atux City can be resolved through improving the public transport system,strengthening construction management,improving urban green system and promoting new technologies.