Assessment of Air Pollution over Baghdad City Using Fixed Annual Stations and GIS Techniques

Abstract

Baghdad, considered one of the most polluted and populated cities in Iraq, waschoosen for mapping the distribution of air pollutants and the overall pollution levels by using the ArcGIS techniques. Six of main observation stations werechoosen in a particular location. Then, the recorded data from these stations were spatially interpolated using two types of ArcGIS interpolation techniques. The spatial interpolation techniques used in this work were Inverse distance weighting (IDW) and fuzzy logic. This study includes measuring the main air pollutants, which were nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxide (NOx), and nitrogen monoxide (NO) during the period from January 2018 to December 2018. The data recorded by the stations during the work period and the distribution maps of air pollutants, which resulted from spatial interpolation (IDW) method, showed that the concentration of NO2 was within the International limits of World Health Origination (WHO) which is about 0.11 ppm. SO2 concentrations were exceeding the WHO limits in all stations for the study area. The concentrations of CO ranged from 0.484 ppm to 7.027 ppm that were within acceptable limits of WHO standards that is 9 ppm. NOx concentrations ranged between 0.01506 ppm – 0.214 ppm, which were exceeding acceptable limits of WHO standards (0.01 ppm). The concentrations of NO did not exceed the WHO standard limits, which are 0.08 ppm. Finally, the fuzzsy logic method of spatial interpolation in ArcGIS was applied to evaluate the air pollution over Baghdad city.