The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.
ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Eng.
Sec. Air Pollution Management
Volume 3 - 2024 |
doi: 10.3389/fenve.2024.1483568
Air Quality Levels in the Industrial City of Jubail, Saudi Arabia
Provisionally accepted- Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, Saudi Arabia
Ambient air quality remains a significant health and environmental challenge in developing cities, primarily due to the increasing gas emissions from fossil fuel use. Harmful outdoor air pollutants is a critical environmental and public health concern because poor air quality directly impacts human health, leading to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. This study aimed to assess ambient gaseous air pollutants specifically sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitric oxide (NO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO), and NMHC in Jubail Industrial City, Saudi Arabia.Hourly fixed-site air quality monitoring data were collected from three air quality monitoring stations distributed throughout the industrial city of Jubail, covering the period from January 2020 to December 2022. Beside the recorded hourly meteorological conditions. Standard monitoring equipment was used to observe pollutant concentrations at all three locations in Jubail. Notably, the highest emissions of CO, SO2, and NMHC occurred in 2021, while the highest emissions of NO, NO2, and NOx were recorded in 2022 with 2022 generally exhibiting the highest gas emissions and 2020 showing the lowest. Variations in gaseous contaminants were noted, influenced by changes in meteorological conditions and human activities. However, the levels of gaseous emissions remained within acceptable limits according to the air quality index. As a result, policies implemented during and after the COVID-19 lockdown successfully reduced the accumulation of gaseous emissions to below harmful levels, and it is crucial to maintain these measures moving forward.
Keywords: ambient air quality, Jubail Industrial City, Gaseous pollutants, Meteorological influence, Industrial emission, Saudi Arabia
Received: 21 Aug 2024; Accepted: 25 Nov 2024.
Copyright: © 2024 Alqahtani, Salama, Alwadei, Aljassim, Alsaif, Al-Warthan and AlMulla. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
KHaled Fikry Salama, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, Saudi Arabia
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.