SHORT-TERM FORECAST OF AIR POLLUTION IN ODESSA WITH NITROGEN DIOXIDE

Abstract

Atmospheric air quality is a major component of public health. For the city of Odessa, air quality is an important component, as the city is one of the recreational and resort centers of Ukraine. Along with this, Odessa is an industrial city with a significant number of vehicles, as well as freight traffic due to the presence of a seaport in the city. In order to reduce the level of air pollution in the regions of Ukraine, a number of measures are taken on the basis of monitoring data. One such measure is pollution forecasting in order to prevent high levels of concentrations of individual pollutants. The development of a forecast scheme for air pollution in the city may allow to respond preventively to the deterioration of air quality. In general, the issue of developing effective air pollution forecasting schemes is an important and urgent task for the city of Odessa. The aim of the work is to study the practical use of the method of short-term forecasting of the level of air pollution on the independent material of different years. The forecast scheme was built to predict the pollution of the air basin of Odessa with nitrogen dioxide in the summer. The average value per day and the city normalized concentration of each impurity Q, which is the ratio of the absolute concentration to the average seasonal concentration of the impurity, was used as the predicted value. A total of 108 forecasts were made. To verify the accuracy of the forecasts, graphs of the dynamics of actual and forecast values of the level of air pollution with nitrogen dioxide were constructed. The consistency of actual and prognostic indicators for the study period was noted. The obtained results indicate that the selected predictors well describe the process of air pollution in Odessa in the summer. This forecasting scheme can be recommended for implementation for operational forecasting of urban air pollution by nitrogen dioxide.