Air Quality Over Baghdad City Using Ground and Aircraft Measurements.

Abstract

In this paper, the air pollutants concentrations measurements such as Total
Suspended Particles(TSP), Carbon Monoxides(CO),Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and
meteorological parameters including temperature (T), relative humidity (RH) and
wind speed & direction were conducted in Baghdad city by several stations
measuring numbered (22) stations located in different regions, and were classified
into (industrial, commercial and residential) stations. The results show that the
concentrations of pollutants (TSP, CO, and CO2) have exceeded the air quality
standards set by World Health Organization (WHO) and Iraqi limitation in the
stations of the Baghdad city. The program (ArcGIS) used to prepare maps of air
pollution in Baghdad city, as well as MS Excel used for drawing the concentrations
of pollutants in ground and to show changed the concentrations with altitude.
Aircraft measurements of gaseous pollutants including ozone (O3), Carbone
monoxide (CO) , Carbone dioxide (CO2) and the particulate matter concentrations (
PM10 , PM2.5 ) were conducted in the Baghdad city from ( 2 January 2014 to 4
Mars 2014 ),the data of total 10 flight (22 h flight time ),the vertical profile of (CO
,CO2 ,O3 ,PM10and PM2.5 ) have been obtained at different altitude over the
Baghdad city covering the lowermost troposphere up to 2100 feet altitude above
ground level (AGL) during all flights were obtained by A bell 407 aircraft and A
king aircraft. The objective was to characterize the spatial and vertical distributions
of these air pollutants.The results indicate that the air pollution levels were severe
over the Baghdad city. The pollutants concentrations were generally decreasing
with altitude in the boundary layer in the flight measurements .These results are
valuable for studying vertical distribution characteristics of gaseous pollutants and
particulate matters in the boundary layer over the Baghdad city and for providing
important basic data to environmental assessment and decision-making. The reasons
for this increasing due to increase in anthropogenic emissions, mainly due to the
increase in fossil fuel use for heating, the burning of the fuel used in various types
of vehicles, as well as the low quality of fuel and the age of the vehicles, the use of
generators, the dry climate, soil erosion, lack of roadside vegetation, paved areas,
substantial rise in number of vehicles and poorly maintained vehicles have all been
held Responsible.