Exploring the Trend of Aerosol Optical Depth and its Implication on Urban Air Quality Using Multi-spectral Satellite Data During the Period from 2009 to 2020 over Dire Dawa, Ethiopia

This study focuses on atmospheric aerosols, especially aerosol optical depth (AOD), over Dire Dawa, Ethiopia, from 2009 to 2020. At first, a correlation between the four satellite sensors and AERONET was made for validation purposes and to determine the sensor that best represents Dire Dawa. Intercomparisons were also made among the four satellite sensors. After all statistical tests, annual, seasonal, and decadal trend analyses were made. The validation results indicated that the AOD of MODIS-terra showed the best correlation with AERONET with R2 (0.78), RMSE (0.03), and MBE of 0.02 and represented the area better than the rest. The inter-comparison of AOD retrieved from multi-spectral satellite sensors showed a positive and satisfactory correlation between MODIS-Terra and OMI. Only MODIS-Aqua showed a linearly increasing mean annual AOD with R2 = 0.43. In three seasons (summer, autumn, and spring), AOD showed linear increments over the 12 years, with R2 ranging between 0.3 and 0.5. The three seasons also had nearly identical AODs of 0.23-0.28. However, winter had the lowest value of 0.2. MODIS-terra, out of the four sensors, exhibited increasing decadal tendency over the 2009-2020 period. Monthly analysis revealed that August had the highest AOD (0.265), and January had the lowest (0.14). The value of AOD obtained from this study over Dire Dawa shows a higher value during all seasons except during winter. Thus, this study gives a glimpse into the use of multi-spectral satellite sensors to monitor air quality over a semi-arid urban region.