Title: Influence of meteorological factors on air pollution concentration for a coastal region in India

Authors: A.K. Gupta, Rashmi S. Patil, S.K. Gupta

Addresses: Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur 721 302, India. ' Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai 400 076, India. ' Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai 400 076, India

Abstract: A long-term study of measurement of concentration of NO_x, SO₂ and TSP pollutants have been done in a port and harbour region in India. Monthly measurements of gaseous and particulate pollutants were made at six monitoring stations from January 1997 to December 2000. Meteorological data was also simultaneously collected. In this study, the relationship between monitored ambient air quality data and meteorological factors, such as wind speed, temperature, is statistically analysed, using the SPSS package. The monthly mean concentrations of NO_x, SO₂ and TSP were in the range of 19.5–59.0 µg/m³, 8.6–51.3 µg/m³ and 88.2–199.3 µg/m³, respectively. The results show that TSP is strongly correlated with NO_x and SO₂ with a correlation coefficient of 0.83 and 0.82, respectively. The correlation coefficients for TSP, NO_x, and SO₂ with wind are –0.78, –0.78, and –0.88, respectively.

Keywords: air pollution; total suspended particulate matter (TSP); NO_x; SO₂; wind speed; statistical analysis.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEP.2004.004193

International Journal of Environment and Pollution, 2004 Vol.21 No.3, pp.253 - 262

Published online: 10 May 2004 *

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