Modeling the effect of dust pollutants on plant biomass and their abatement from the near earth atmosphere

Abstract

Scavenging of ground level dust pollution from the near earth atmosphere has been a challenging problem, causing various undesirable consequences to human beings and their ecosystem. Water sprays and plant biomass in a greenbelt can be very effective mechanisms for the mitigation of ground level dust pollution. In the present paper, a nonlinear mathematical model is proposed to investigate the impact of water sprays and plant biomass on the reduction of ground level dust pollution. Moreover, the effect of dust pollutants captured on plant biomass has also been discussed. In modeling process, we have considered three non-linearly dependent variables namely, the cumulative concentration of dust pollutants, the density of plant biomass and the number density of water sprays. Using stability theory of ordinary differential equations, local and global stability conditions of the model equilibria are obtained. Model analysis reveals that the equilibrium concentration of dust pollutants decreases as the rate of removal parameters increases. Further, it is also found that if the cumulative concentration of dust pollutants is less than its threshold concentration then there is no need to spray water droplets into the near earth atmosphere. Numerical simulation has also been performed to support the analytical findings.