Modeling Particulate Matter Concentrations in Makkah, Applying a Statistical Modeling Approach

Abstract

Particulate matter originates from a variety of sources in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. Since Makkah is situated in an arid region and is a very busy city due to its religious importance in the Muslim world, PM 10 concentrations here exceed the international and national air quality standards set for the protection of human health. The main aim of this paper is to model PM 10 concentrations with the aid of meteorological variables (wind speed, wind direction, temperature, and relative humidity) and traffic related air pollutant concentrations (carbon monoxide (CO), nitric oxide (NO), nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ), sulphur dioxide (SO 2 ) and lag_PM 10 concentrations), which are measured at the same location near Al-Haram (the Holy Mosque) in Makkah. A Generalized Additive Model was developed for predicting hourly PM 10 concentrations. Predicted and observed PM 10 concentrations are compared, and several metrics, including the coefficients of determination (R 2 = 0.52), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE = 84), Fractional Bias (FB = -0.22) and Factor of 2 (FAC2 = 0.88), are calculated to assess the performance of the model. The results of these, along with a graphical comparison of the predicted and observed concentrations, show that model is able to perform well. While effects of all the covariates were significant (p-value < 0.01), the meteorological variables, such as temperature and wind speed, seem to be the major controlling factors with regard to PM 10 concentrations. Traffic related air pollutants showed a weak association with PM 10 concentrations, suggesting road traffic is not the major source of these. No modeling study has been published with regards to air pollution in Makkah and thus this is the first work of this kind. Further work is required to characterize road traffic flow, speed and composition and quantify the contribution of each source, which is part of the ongoing project for managing the air quality in Makkah.

Changes in terrestrial near-surface wind speed and their possible causes: an overview

“…The SWS can influence visibility, aerosol distribution, and air quality (Munir et al 2013;Onat and Stakeeva 2013;Zhu and Liang 2013;Wu et al 2013;Zhang et al 2016a), and decreases in the SWS can intensify the accumulation of aerosols, thereby reducing the solar radiation received at the surface. Lin et al (2015) found that surface dimming was associated with decreases in SWS in some regions with severe air pollution in China.…”

Particulate Matter and Number Concentrations of Particles Larger than 0.25 µm in the Urban Atmosphere of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

“…Shaltout et al (2013) focused on the chemical composition of PM 2.5 during June-August 2011 at an industrial site and a residential site in Taif, which is a mountain city about 140 km east of Jeddah city. Rushdi et al (2013) presented PM 2.5 and PM 10 concentrations at ten locations within the capital city Riyadh during June andNovember 2006 andFebruary andMay 2007. The longest data series on air quality parameters (NO x , NO, NO 2 , SO 2 , CO, O 3 and PM 10 ) was published by the Hajj Research Institute, Umm Al-Qura University in Makkah (Munir et al, 2013b), which is about 70 km to the east of Jeddah. This study presented the temporal variations over 12 valid years during 1997-2012.…”

Modeling Particulate Matter (PM10) in Makkah, Saudi Arabia - A View Point of Health Impact

“…Higher concentration in summer is probably caused by high wind speed and high temperature a common phenomenon in Saudi Arabia which increases atmospheric turbulence leading to a greater amount of resuspension of dust from roadside and blowing sand particles from the surrounding areas. It is worth mentioning that resuspension of dust particles and windblown sand and dust particles along with road traffic and other combustion processes are the main sources of particulate matter in Saudi Arabia [18], [19]. However the model does not differentiate in PM 10 originated from different sources.…”