Evaluating air quality monitoring stations in Turkey by using multi criteria decision making

Abstract

The monitoring of air pollutants is required to manage the air quality in cities. The main purposes of this paper are determining the priorities of air pollutants, and evaluating the air quality monitoring stations (AQMS) in Turkey by calculating their air pollution indexes via multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) methods. For calculation of index scores, concentration and threshold exceedance data of 44 AQMS, measured 5 air pollutants (PM10, SO2, CO, NO2, and O3) at the same time, are included in analysis. Criteria priorities of concentrations and threshold exceedances are determined by using experts’ views. Air pollution indexes are calculated for 2019 employing the grey relational analysis (GRA) method of the MCDM approach. Moreover, a relative pollution level transition diagram is constructed to compare the differences between 2018 and 2019. According to the results, the priority of PM10 is observed as about 2.5 times more important than NO2. Threshold limits exceedance number priorities of air pollutants criteria are about 1/3 times more important than concentrations of air pollutants according to the experts. PM10 was the most important pollutant due to its high concentrations and the high number of limit exceedances. Çanakkale-Biga station has the best air quality among 44 AQMS. Ankara-Siteler station is evaluated as the most polluted station. The results of this study indicated that the air quality of stations located near industrial zones and thermal power plants was poorer than other AQMS. This study showed that calculated air pollution index scores can be used for ranking and comparatively evaluating AQMS.