Land use and land cover (LULC) modification on the climate and air quality variations

Abstract

Land use and land cover change are one of the crucial climate change drivers in expanding cities. The land use conversion which alters physical and thermal properties of land surface has also affected the air quality of the urban atmosphere. The paper attempted to investigate how the land use land cover modification can be associated with climate and particle matter variation in Selangor for a decade (2007-2017). PM10 concentration, relative humidity, temperature and wind speed were interpolated using Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW) from six monitoring stations in Selangor and compared to chronological land use changes. The results showed that the land use conversion had induced the variation of particulate matter in the monitoring station located at urban and sub-urban areas. For a decade most land use/land cover had been converted from forest to vegetation areas in northern part and urbanization is expanding intensively to the western part of Selangor in year 2017. Both years have recorded high concentration for particulate matter in Kuala Selangor with concentration of 57.28 µg/m3 and 47.16 µg/m3 respectively. The concentration variation distribution is highly affected during monsoonal, where the stations are located is much significant to be affected by meteorological factor and modification of surrounding land use land cover.