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.
Air is one of the major components of the environment that has been abused by human reckless behavior due to renaissance and prosperity as part of urbanization causing what is known today as air pollution. Air pollution has become a burdensome and an international problem threatening the existence of life due to its adverse impact on all living organisms, as well as facilities. Air pollution comprises outdoor and indoor air pollution, which was rated by experts as high risk to human health. According to World Health Organization (WHO) 1 of 6 people lives in polluted urban area, which is more than 1.1 billion people [
Monitoring the level of air pollutant is vital for their control and for decision makers. Therefore, the concentrations of air pollutants in Kuwait are constantly measured and monitored by number of fixed Air Quality Monitoring Stations, (AQMS) belonging to Kuwait-Environment Public Authority (KU-EPA). Mainly air quality in Kuwait is affected from burning fossil fuel in power plants, traffic, oil activities and petroleum refineries.
The area of air quality in the State of Kuwait has been discussed by many researchers [2-8]. Wahab and Bouhamra [
Ettouney et al., [
Al-Bassam and Popov [
The state of Kuwait is located in the northeastern corner of Arabian Peninsula and one of the Gulf Cooperation Council, GCC countries, which is mainly depending on oil as natural resource. Kuwait is a major exporter of crude oil, which is equal to 2.6 million barrels per day (mbbld). Kuwait locally produces heavy fuel oil that has been used for power generation that contains about 4% sulphur [
Due to its size, location (proximity to main pollutants sources) and large population, Al Jahra city was selected as the study area. This work is based on the quantitative analysis of air pollution data reflecting the ambient air quality of Al Jahra being the largest governorate in the state of Kuwait. The exceedances of the air pollutants threshold values are calculated during the period of study. Also, the diurnal profiles and the seasonal variations of these air pollutants are studied and the relationships between each other were investigated. The year of 2010 was divided into two main seasons (winter and summer) furthermore, these seasons are divided into three months each, starting from winter (January to March) and summer season (July to September). Similar diurnal trend of concentration levels at different times in the day were observed for both seasons. The meteorological parameters (temperature, wind speed and direction and solar intensity) were also considered in the discussion of the results.
Locations and MeasurementsKuwait map (
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The air quality data in Kuwait were collected using a fixed AQMS operated by KU-EPA, which measures continuously each 5 minutes the concentration level of various pollutants. This monitoring station is located above the main polyclinic in the middle of the residential area. The sampling site is selected on the basis of availability of power, security and elevated position.
The ambient air quality data for two extreme seasons (summer and winter) as hourly average concentrations and meteorological conditions were recorded utilizing monitoring stations fixed by KU-EPA at selected sites throughout the state of Kuwait. The pollutants measured were CO, CH4, PM10, NM-HC, SO2 and NO2. The collected meteorological conditions include wind speed and wind direction, ambient temperature and solar intensity. All of the data were recorded from a station placed 10 m above Al Jahra polyclinic located in the centre of commercial districts of the city. Figures 2-15 depict the behaviour of the measured pollutant concentrations and meteorological conditions in Al Jahra city during the designated seasons in year 2010.
NO2 for each hour in year 2010. NO2 concentrations for winter season were consistently higher than summer values by about (50%) due to many reasons. The foremost cause for this behaviour is summer weather being extremely hot, humid and dusty forcing most of residents, especially foreigners, to travel to their respective countries for summer vacations. About 67% of the population in the state of Kuwait comprises expatriates as reported by ministry of planning in Kuwait (http://unstats.un.org/unsd/statcom/_seminar/kuwait.pdf). This in turn reduces human consumption of fossil fuel used in HVAC and vehicles, which decreases NO emission and hence NO2 formation. Also summer season is characterized as windy and dusty that dilutes and disperses the pollutants evenly decreasing the concentrations of pollutants in the air. The maximum concentration level was recorded during evening time at 19:00 hr for winter season, which is equal to 63.02 ppb (seasonal average). This concentration is in concordance with the results reported by Ettouney et al., [
The diurnal CO hourly seasonal average concentrations are plotted in
measured during the summer season about (80%); however there are times especially at low values where CO concentrations during the summer season exceed those recorded in winter season. This is partially caused by drivers (chauffeurs) who keep their cars running to maintain inner car temperatures when they are waiting in the parking area during the summer for quite sometimes to avoid hot weather. CO concentration, unlike NO2, is not showing any trend due to its long decay life about 7 days that forces constant background concentration which does not follow any typical behaviour.
Diurnal variations for NM-HC and methane concentrations during year 2010 are plotted in Figures 5 and 6, respectively for winter and summer seasons. The concentration of NM-HC gas is most of the time above the standards set by Kuwait Environmental Public Authority, KEPA, (0.24 ppm average value from 6:00 to 9:00 am). The seasonal variation of these gases is different from NO2 and CO concentrations, showing no significant change in the concentrations of NM-HC between winter and summer seasons (less than 0.1 ppm) due to consistent emission from their sources petroleum related activities (oil production, transportation, refining, dispensing and consumption). However, for early morning and late afternoon hours higher values during winter season are recorded reaching maximum concentrations of 0.48 and 0.56 ppm respectively. Methane concentration is plotted in
Unlike previous results,