TITLE:
Carbon Monoxide Concentration Monitoring in Akure—A Comparison between Urban and Rural Environment
AUTHORS:
Ifeoluwa Adebowale Balogun, Ahmed Adedoyin Balogun, Jimmy Adegoke
KEYWORDS:
Carbon Monoxide; Urban; Rural; World Health Organisation
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Environmental Protection,
Vol.5 No.4,
March
18,
2014
ABSTRACT:
Air
pollution has been identified to be one major problem associated with
urbanisation, particularly in developing countries. In this regard, this paper
utilizes data from a year-long experiment of simultaneous measurements to
examine and compare the variations of carbon monoxide concentrations, a major
air pollutant at urban and rural site in Akure, a medium-sized tropical city in
south western Nigeria. The comparison was done to assess the urban influence on
the air pollutant. CO concentrations at the urban centre have been identified
to exhibit distinct diurnal and day-of-week variations with respect to traffic
rush hours. It is also observed that the concentrations at the urban centre
were 2 - 3 times higher than that of the rural site which exhibited a
consistent cyclic diurnal pattern throughout the week. Results further
identified the major cause of CO concentration in the urban centre to be
vehicular as consistent increase of the air pollutant from 08:00 to 16:00
during the weekdays is found to be associated with “school runs and rush hours”
and also rises through the midnight hours on days linked with social events,
particularly Saturdays. In relation to human health and World Health
Organisation (WHO) guidelines, results showed that CO concentrations at the
urban centre exceeded the WHO 8-hour average recommendation during daytime
throughout the weekdays.