The Impacts of Urbanization on Air Quality: How Elevated Traffic Volumes in New Jersey Affect the Local Health of the Atmosphere

As one of the most populated states in the nation, New Jersey is home to some of the worst traffic, due to all forms of travel, whether work related or for leisure activities. However in the last few decades, it has been identified that a number of known atmospheric contaminants such as, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), carbon monoxide (CO), and nitrogen oxide (NOx), are being found in large quantities within our atmosphere. With such elevated levels of these contaminants, many health concerns arise for the citizens of New Jersey. It has been observed that gasoline powered vehicles can play a major role in the expelling of known airborne contaminants; which could be the reason for unhealthy atmospheric conditions in the presence of high vehicle volumes during particular times of day. By integrating descriptive statistics and geographic information systems (GIS) applications, we expect to see that major highways are centered around areas of high population, in conjunction with high traffic volumes. The study will also focus on air quality index values during peak travel times, in each of the specified locations. In displaying the correlation between air quality and traffic volumes, we can see that vehicles are a considerable factor in the overall health of the air in which we breathe each and every day.