Short and Long-Term Temporal Changes in Air Quality in a Seoul Urban Area: The Weekday/Sunday Effect

Jan E. Szulejko, Adedeji A. Adelodun, Ki-Hyun Kim, J. W. Seo, Kowsalya Vellingiri, Eui-Chan Jeon, Jongki Hong and Richard J. C. Brown
Additional contact information
Jan E. Szulejko: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Hanyang University, 222 Wangsimni-Ro, Seoul 04763, Korea
Adedeji A. Adelodun: Department of Marine Science and Technology, The Federal University of Technology, P.M.B. 704, Akure, Nigeria
Ki-Hyun Kim: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Hanyang University, 222 Wangsimni-Ro, Seoul 04763, Korea
J. W. Seo: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Hanyang University, 222 Wangsimni-Ro, Seoul 04763, Korea
Kowsalya Vellingiri: Environmental and Water Resources Engineering Division, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Madras, Chennai 600 036, India
Eui-Chan Jeon: Department of Environment & Energy, Sejong University, Seoul 05006, Korea
Jongki Hong: College of Pharmacy, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, Korea
Richard J. C. Brown: Chemical, Medical and Environmental Science Department, National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, Middlesex TW11 0LW, UK

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 4, 1-12

Abstract: We present evidence on the short-term differences in airborne pollution levels in terms of weekday/weekend (WD/WN) and weekday/Sunday (WD/Sun) intervals. To this end, we analyzed the hourly data of important pollutants (nitric oxide (NO), nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ), ozone (O 3 ) and carbon monoxide (CO)) using the data acquired in the Yong-San district of Seoul, Korea from 2009 to 2013. For each week, the pollutant ratio (R w ) was estimated through either WD/WN or WD/Sun. Here, a week is defined as Sunday through Saturday, WD as Monday through Friday and WN as Sunday and Saturday. The WD/Sun R w geometric means (and range) were 2.02 (0.27–15.5) for NO, 1.29 (0.49–5.7) for NO 2 and 0.89 (0.17–7.2) for O 3 while the fraction of R w (WD/Sun) > 1 were 81, 71 and 38%, respectively. NO and CO levels were much higher in October through March (during Autumn and Winter) than April through September (during Spring and Summer), reflecting the potential effect of fuel consumption (e.g., in terms of use patterns of nationwide city natural gas). Thus, we provide a broader interpretation on the occurrence patterns of the major pollutants (e.g., NO, NO 2 , O 3 and CO) in relation to temporal changes in man-made activities.

Keywords: oxides of nitrogen; ozone; PM 10; weekday-weekend effect; meteorological data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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