Spatiotemporal Patterns of Air Pollution in an Industrialised City—A Case Study of Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan

• Published in: Atmosphere 2022-12, Vol.13 (12), p.1956
• Main Authors: Assanov, Daulet, Radelyuk, Ivan, Perederiy, Olessya, Galkin, Stanislav, Maratova, Gulira, Zapasnyi, Valeriy, Klemeš, Jiří Jaromír
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Air pollution; Air quality; Analysis; Apportionment; Cities; Cluster analysis; Coal; Cold season; Contamination; Datasets; Developing countries; Dimensions; Environmental aspects; Environmental impact; Environmental monitoring; Environmental regulations; Formaldehyde; Heat generation; Heavy metals; Hydrogen sulfide; Identification; industrial emissions; Industrial plant emissions; Industrial pollution; Investigations; LDCs; Metallurgy; Monitoring systems; Nitrogen dioxide; Outdoor air quality; Phenols; Pollutants; Pollution sources; Power plants; principal component analysis; Principal components analysis; Quality of life; Seasonal variations; Seasonality; Seasons; Statistical methods; Sulfur dioxide; Sulfuric acid; Sulphuric acid; Warm seasons
• ISSN: 2073-4433; 2073-4433
• DOI: 10.3390/atmos13121956

Air quality issues still affect the quality of life for people in industrialised cities around the world. The investigations should include the identification of the sources of the pollution and its distribution in space and time. This work is the first attempt to perform identification of the sources of pollution in Ust-Kamenogorsk city in Kazakhstan. Analysis of retrospective data (including ten variables (TSP, SO2, CO, NO2, phenol, HF, HCl, H2SO4, formaldehyde, H2S) from five monitoring stations for the period 2017–2021) using multivariate statistical methods and hierarchical cluster analysis has been performed to assess spatiotemporal patterns of air quality of the city. The results indicate that the contamination patterns can be grouped into two categories: cold and warm seasons. The study revealed the dangerous concentrations of NO2 and SO2 exceeded the limits by 2–3 and 1.5–2 times, independently of the seasonality. Averaged concentrations of TSP slightly exceeded the established limits for the most industrialised part of the city. Concentrations of HF and formaldehyde significantly rose during the cold seasons compared to the warm seasons. Other chemical parameters significantly depend on the seasonality and locations of the sampling points. The major reason for air pollution is twofold—the use of a burnt-coal throughout the year for electricity and heat generation (especially during the cold seasons) and the high density of the heavy metallurgy industry in the city. The principal component analysis confirms a high loading of industrial sources of air pollution on both spatial and seasonal dimensions.