Shiraz Air Pollution: Dependency on Meteorology and Temporal Variability

An effective policy on air quality control in urban areas requires a detailed understanding of how pollutants interact with meteorological conditions and an understanding of how variations of concentrations of air pollutants are affected at temporal and local scales. This paper analyses air pollution in Shiraz in terms of three considerations: meteorological effects; temporal variability and impacts recorded at two urban stations located in Shiraz. Results imply that meteorology has an effect on pollutant concentrations and their variations in different months and situations. Results indicate that dependency on meteorology for dust, ozone (O3), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulphur dioxide (SO2) are more than that of carbon monoxide (CO). Temporal variations in different years showed that some pollutants, such as CO and SO2, demonstrated a decreasing trend in recent years as a result of air quality control policies, but dust had an increasing trend because of natural events. The difference between the two stations for all pollutants that were analyzed was significant. The findings of this study confirm that human activity and natural events have an effective impact on urban air pollution.