TITLE:
Air Pollutants Occurrence Determinant Assessments and Climate Change Health Effect on Humans along Coastal Road-Senegambia Axis in Gambia
AUTHORS:
Vincent Oyareme, Eunice Ifeyinwa Osaji
KEYWORDS:
Pollution Standard Index Threshold, Climate Change, Health Implications Air Pollutant Devices, Plant Species for Air Pollutant Reduction
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.10 No.9,
September
27,
2023
ABSTRACT: Air pollutant is a major health risk humans faced world-wide and climate change menace globally. Air pollutants cause air pollutions, harmful substances release into the atmosphere in form of particulate or gaseous substance leads to the contamination of air and the environment as well as ecosystem. Globally, only one tenth people are free from air pollution, nine out of ten people inhaled polluted air in which majority of people are not aware of the significant health issue and environmental impacts of poor air quality. Regarding to the whole world, air pollution is one of the largest threats faced by people, mostly adverse air quality. Air pollution has killed numerous people due to the severity of their concentrations that affects sensitive respiratory organs like the heart, lungs, chest etc. Collection of air pollutant data was done for a period of six months, using electronic air meter (model 460DG) from January to July, 2023. Fifteen different air qualities occurred; six among them are the air the pollutants detected in the study area. Carbon monoxide (CO) was found with the highest concentration levels, recorded as 232.56 ± 14.13 μg/m3 in class five category with purple colour, in excess atmospheric air (O2) results to carbon (IV) oxide as the main cause of climate change and global warming and also part of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs), particulate matter (PM10) recorded 115.36 ± 27.06 μg/m3, ammonia (NH3) had 67.25 ± 44.87 μg/m3, particulate matter (PM2.5) recorded mean value of 65.69 ± 28.13 μg/m3, ozone (O3) had an average mean value of 64.04 ± 6.55 μg/m3 and humidity recorded 61.83 ± 7.41 μg/m3, apart from (CO), in the detected air pollutants, other five pollutants are categorized into class two (2) by virtue of their moderate yellow coloration and index value of concern levels of peoples’ health in the environment. Air pollution challenges can be control and solved using different air pollution, encouraging more vegetation by planting trees like Coleus blumeri, Ficusvariegata and Phascolus vulgaris. Species of Pinus, Quercus, Pyrus, Juniperus and Vitis depollute the air by metabolizing nitrogen oxides. A lot required trees should be planted especially around those areas which are prone as high-risk areas of air pollution. Air pollutants occurrence in the study location exists in this form of ascending order of significance as CO > PM10 > NH3 > O3 > PM2.5 > Humidity. Other occurred pollutants were satisfactory to human, due to their class of category. They fall in class one (1) category, green colour indicating good and concern level and index values.