Air pollution at Bukit Rambai, Melaka during the haze episode of 2005

The study investigates the relationship between air pollutants and weather parameters during the 2005 haze phenomenon in Bukit Rambai, Melaka. Air pollutants such as particulate matter of less than 10 microns (PM10), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulphur dioxide (SO2) and ozone (O3), and weather parameters such as temperature, sunshine, rain and wind, were investigated. The highest concentration of PM10 was detected in February at 113 μg/m³. Multivariate regression and correlation analyses for three durations of the annual (January to December), dry northeast monsoon (January to March), wet northeast monsoon (October to December) showed weak relationships for the two independent variables of rainfall and wind speed of PM10 for the annual duration, and slightly stronger relationship during the dry and wet northeast monsoons. The rainfall and wind speed parameters accounted for 4.13% to the PM10 concentrations during the annual time scale, 0.18% during the dry northeast monsoon and 0.92 % during the wet northeast monsoon. The correlation analysis showed that the wind speed had a weak and inverse relationship with the PM10 concentrations during the southwest monsoon (-0.082), the northeast monsoon (-0.034) and the wet northeast monsoon (-0.089), respectively. The amount of rainfall also had a respectively weak and inverse relationship with the PM10 at -0.025 and -0.06. In conclusion, although the Bukit Rambai industrial area was affected during the haze crisis in 2005, it still recorded a lower Air Pollutant Index level of 118 in contrast to 529 and 532 at Port Klang and Kuala Selangor, respectively.