Visualization of Atmospheric Structure in Nagano City for Urban Planning Using Lidar Measurement

Atmospheric aerosol observations in Nagano city were performed using a scanning-type lidar system and the results were visualized as two-dimensional horizontal or vertical cross-sections . On the horizontal image, an area of high aerosol density clearly appeared along a main road with heavy traffic . The originof the aerosol was exhaust from vehicles. Differences in the vertical aerosol structure between winter and summer were shown, and these differences were discussed in relation to urbanization, human activities and regional weather conditions. These results show that the visualized data can offer rare and important information for urban planning and its environmental assessment, and also that the lidar measurement technique has great potentials in this field.