Evaluation of the Long-Term Air Quality Trends in Ohio

摘要

There is a growing concern in the Ohio area regarding the rapid rise in levels of various air pollutants there in last few years. In this paper we present the results of a long-term air quality trend analyses for five air pollutants namely, ozone, PM_(10), CO, SO2 and NO2. Air Quality data was obtained from Ohio EPA and Ohio University for several monitoring sites within major urban areas of Ohio for the period of January 1, 1992 through December 31, 2000. The objective of this study was to analyze the long-term trends of air pollutants using an advanced statistical technique called Kolmogorov-Zurbenko (KZ) filter. Results obtained from the KZ filter analysis indicated that both increasing and decreasing trends were found for ozone and PM_(10) at different sites. Ozone concentrations at some selected sites exceeded the eight-hour NAAQS during the study period. CO and SO2 concentration at all the selected sites show decreasing trends during this study period. In contrast, NO2 concentrations at selected sites show an increasing trend.