Impacts of some meteorological parameters on SO2 and TSP concentrations in Erzurum, Turkey

The air pollution is the one of the most important environmental problems in Erzurum, situated in the eastern of Turkey, during winter periods. The unfavorable climate as well as the city's topography, and inappropriate urbanization cause serious air pollution problems. The air pollutant concentrations in a city have a close relationship with its meteorological parameters. In the present study, the relationship between daily average total suspended particulate (TSP) and sulphur dioxide (SO2) concentrations with meteorological factors, such as wind speed, temperature, relative humidity, pressure and precipitation, in 1995-2002 winter seasons was statistically analyzed using the stepwise multiple linear regression analysis. According to the results obtained through analysis, higher TSP and SO2 concentrations are strongly related to colder temperatures, lower wind speed, higher pressure system and weakly lower precipitation and higher relative humidity. The statistical models of SO2 and TSP including meteorological parameters gave R2 of 0.74 and 0.88, respectively. Furthermore, the correlation between the previous day's SO2, TSP concentrations and actual concentrations of these pollutants on that day was investigated and found as 0.84 and 0.53, respectively. In order to develop this model, previous day's SO2 and TSP concentrations were added to the equations. The new model for SO2 enhanced considerably (R2 = 0.92), but for TSP new model was not enhanced (R2 = 0.89).