Geostatistical Modelling and Mapping of the Concentration of Gaseous Pollutants

In this study, the prediction of the concentration of gaseous pollutants around Ughelli West gas flow station in Delta State of Nigeria was carried out using Geostatistical technique in GIS environment. Since air pollutants negatively affect quality of air, lives and the environment, there is therefore the need to frequently monitor air quality, have thorough understanding of the pollutants’ concentration and their spatial distribution in an environment. The gaseous pollutants data of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), methane (CH4), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulphur dioxide (SO2) and ozone (O3), were obtained using Multi-parameter gas monitor while that of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) was obtained with SPM meter for a period of three months. Thermo Anemometer was used to obtain the values of wind speed, ambient temperature, atmospheric pressure and relative humidity. Artificial Neural Network designer software (Pythia) was used to validate the acquired field data; predict the concentration of the gaseous pollutants at selected distances from the flow station. The geospatial coordinates of the flow station were obtained using Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers; the geospatial modelling and analysis were performed with ArcGIS software and ordinary kriging method of Geostatistical techniques. The results of the maximum concentration for the gaseous pollutants in the study area were 28.17 µg/m3, 19.44 µg/m3, 0.37 µg/m3, 49.81 µg/m3, 0.061 µg/m3 and 0.047µg/m3 for VOCs, CH4, NO2, PM2.5, O3 and SO2 respectively. The root mean square error for the concentration of the gaseous pollutants, ozone and sulphur (IV) oxide in the study area were 0.01618 and 0.008417 indicating a good interpolation model, while their root mean square standard errors, which show the reliability of the predicted values, were 0.70513551 and 0.8459251 respectively. These results conform with the report of other researchers that a better kriging method yields a smaller root mean square and a standard root mean square closer to one. The developed prediction maps for the gaseous pollutants in this study revealed that the study area will experience lower concentration of gaseous pollutants at a distance of 400 m and above.