Study of persistence of days infected pollutant Particulate Matter (PM10) in city of Tehran using Markov chain model

Air pollution is one indication of Citizens growth, population increase, excessive use of fossil fuel resources, lack of utilizing environmentally friendly technologies and most importantly lack of proper environmental management. Establishment more than ten million people and excessive concentration of industries and factories, along with the geographical situation, topography and specific climatic region, have made Tehran one of the seven polluted cities in the world. In the assessment of air quality, concentration of Particulate Matter < 10µm (pm-10), among the various pollutants, has of great importance. In this study, the probability of persistence of two to seven days unauthorized amounts of pollutants Particulate Matter (pm-10) in city of Tehran was investigated. For this purpose, the 5-year data (2002-2006) relate to five stations measuring air quality of pollution control companies of Tehran were collected and then, using two-mode first order Markov chain was modeled. The results showed that the highest probability of persistence of pollutant Particulate Matter (pm-10), exist in Bazar, Fatemi and Aqdasiyeh stations, respectively. In most months of the year, Bazar station has the highest probability of Particulate Matter (pm-10) and two stations, Fatemi and Aqdasiyeh, are located in next ranks. Meanwhile, the persistence of pollutant Particulate Matter (pm-10) in Shahr-Rey and Geophysic stations in all months of the year is approximately zero.this situation may be because of the position of this stations outside tehran city.

Key words: Air pollution, Particulate Matter (pm-10), Persistence, Markov chain, Tehran.