Abstract
The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the sensitivity of tropospheric ozone and particulate matter concentrations to changes in local scale meteorology with the aid of meteorological variables (wind speed, wind direction, relative humidity, solar radiation and temperature) and intensity of traffic using hourly concentration of NOX, which are measured in three different locations in Tunis, (i.e. Gazela, Mannouba and Bab Aliwa). In order to quantify the impact of meteorological conditions and precursor concentrations on air pollution, a general model was developed where the logarithm of the hourly concentrations of O3 and PM10 were modeled as a sum of non-linear functions using the framework of Generalized Additive Models (GAMs). Partial effects of each predictor are presented. We obtain a good fit with R² = 85% for the response variable O3 at Bab Aliwa station. Results show the aggregate impact of meteorological variables in the models explained 29% of the variance in PM10 and 41% in O3. This indicates that local meteorological condition is an active driver of air quality in Tunis. The time variables (hour of the day, day of the week and month) also have an effect. This is especially true for the time variable “month” that contributes significantly to the description of the study area.
Highlights
Nowadays, it is well known that air pollution and its impact on human health have become a primary topic in atmosphere research
Based on the data described in Section “Site description and sample collection”, the additive model with all variables was estimated for the two pollution variables PM10 and O3 recorded at three different stations in Tunis
We found that the explained variance for the entire model is between 0.56 and 0.85, indicating that the models explain most of the variation in pollutant concentrations, but a considerable amount of variation is still unexplained
Summary
It is well known that air pollution and its impact on human health have become a primary topic in atmosphere research. A good number of epidemiological studies have demonstrated the strong link between atmospheric pollution and daily deaths and hospitalizations of pulmonary and cardiac diseases (Sinharay et al, 2017; Bourdrel et al, 2017). Tunisia is a beautiful country with diverse, complex geography and is located between the Mediterranean coast and the Saharan region. This location together with a diversity of air pollution sources (e.g. traffic, industrial, dust) leads to exceedances of air quality guideline values recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO, 2016). Accelerated growth in emission sources of air pollutants in most important Tunisian cities like Tunis, Sfax and Gabes (Melki, 2007; Bouchlaghem and Nsom, 2012) cause an urgent need to adopt specific policies in managing air pollution
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