ISSS608 2018-19 T1 Assign Debbie Siah Mei Ping Task 3
Sofia City - Air Quality Analysis
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Task 3: Explore other factors affecting air quality in Sofia City
Urban air pollution is a complex issue. There are many factors affecting the air quality of a city. Some of the possible causes are:
- Local energy sources. For example, according to Unmask My City (http://unmaskmycity.org/project/sofia/), a global initiative by doctors, nurses, public health practitioners, and allied health professionals dedicated to improving air quality and reducing emissions in our cities, Bulgaria’s main sources of PM10, and fine particle pollution PM2.5 (particles 2.5 microns or smaller) are household burning of fossil fuels or biomass, and transport.
- Local meteorology such as temperature, pressure, rainfall, humidity, wind etc
- Local topography
- Complex interactions between local topography and meteorological characteristics.
- Transboundary pollution for example the haze that intruded into Singapore from our neighbours.
In this third task, you are required to reveal the relationships between the factors mentioned above and the air quality measure detected in Task 1 and Task 2.
Local Energy Sources
It is noted that there is a seasonal pattern over the years where the air pollutant readings will increase during the colder months of winter and decrease during the warmer summer months. This is observed through both the official air quality station readings as well as the citizen sensors readings.
According to Unmask my City, household burning of fossil fuels or biomass and transport is the main source of pollutants to the atmostphere in Bulgaria. This is in line with the observations we made in this study as it is likely that fuel burning will be higher during the winter months.
Local Meteorology
Air Quality appears to drop when temperature drops. However, there seems to be no relationship between air quality and pressure as well as humidity. This may need further looking into to confirm the hypothesis.
