COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF NON-ROAD EMISSION SOURCES OF WATERWAYS AND MASS GATHERING CENTERS IN PORTHARCOURT, NIGERIA

Abstract

Emission from non-road engines is one of the main sources of urban air pollution in the developed countries and a great challenge in developing countries like Nigeria due to lack of data and proper regulation. The emission data from non-road engines of waterside and mass gathering centers in Port Harcourt were collected from the field and emissions factors inventories and literatures and are transformed and modelled using the emission factor techniques AERMOD (version 22112)/AERMET. Eight modelled air quality index parameters data ie PM1, PM2.5, PM10, SOx, NOx, VOC, CO and CO2 modelled. 112 sets of these eight parameters data were collected from 20 different waterside locations and 49 data set collected from 21 different mass gathering centers were subjected to descriptive using mean and range and multivariate statistical analysis using SPSS version 23. The mean cumulative emissions in g/s of the parameters are more than three times greater in waterside than mass gathering centers except PM2.5. The results of principal component analysis (PCA) of waterside AQI parameters showed heavy loading of SOx, CO2, CO, NOx and PM1 on Principal component1 (PC1) which accounted for 76.021% of the total variance while PC2 accounted for 13.034% of the total variance with average loading of the three particulate matters. The two PC1 and PC2 accounted for 89.055% of the total variance or information. The PCA of mass gathering centers AQI parameters showed heavy loading of NOx, CO, CO2, PM1, VOC, SOx and PM10 on (PC1) which accounted for 77.657 % of the total variance while PC2 accounted for 12.834 % of the total variance with high loading of PM2.5. The two PC1 and PC2 accounted for 90.491 % of the total variance or information. The result of hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) of the air quality index parameters in both waterside and mass gathering centers showed CO, CO2, NOx and SOx in first cluster while particulate matter found in second cluster. Both the PCA bi-plot and HCA dendrogram showed that, SOx, CO2, CO and NOx are major parameters requiring attention followed by particulate matters. Therefore, adverse health effect of these parameters are imminent in the study area and measures to reduce the emission need to be put in place to address the problem.