TITLE:
Seasonal Influence on the Ambient Air Quality in Al Jahra City for Year 2010
AUTHORS:
Raslan Alenezi, Bader Al-Anzi, Abdallah Abusam, Aamir Ashfaque
KEYWORDS:
Pollutants; Al Jahra; Seasonal Changes; Monitoring Station
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Environmental Protection,
Vol.3 No.12,
December
31,
2012
ABSTRACT: Eight primary criteria air contaminants were measured continuously for the year 2010 to evaluate ambient air quality in Al Jahra, which is one of the oldest and busiest cities in the state of Kuwait. The state of the art instrumentation was used to record the pollutants concentration to ppb levels maintaining quality control and quality assurance. Hourly base data for Non-Methane Hydrocarons (NM-HC), CH4, CO, CO2, O3, SO2, NO2and Particulate Matter (PM10) were analyzed for year 2010. Meteorological parameters contributing to air pollution, such as (temperature, solar intensity, wind speed and direction) have also been considered. The effect of winter and summer seasonal changes on pollutant concentration levels were analyzed to identify the most probable sources for the application of the futuristic mitigation methods for pollution abatement. The obtained results consistently suggest that the foregoing pollutant concentration levels are higher in winter than summer due to poor dispersion and shallow inversion layer with the exception of O3, CO2and PM10. However, all of the pollutant concentrations are below the allowable standards limits except for NM-HC.