ABSTRACT
Over the last few decades, air pollution has become a major environmental concern. Its impact on public health, safety, and our ecosystems has been quite alarming. It’s crucial for government officials to anticipate air pollution levels to help safeguard our climate and protect the environment, enabling them to develop effective strategies for pollution prevention. This study aims to examine the trends and patterns of significant air pollutants in Port Harcourt of Nigeria, which is situated in Niger Delta region, investigate seasonal variations and their connections to weather conditions and human activities, and create and validate forecasting models to predict future air quality indices. The study dived deep into the air quality by employing time series analysis techniques to reveal the patterns of air pollutants over time. The study spans from January 2010 to December 2023, providing a thorough 14-year time series for analysis. By using methods like autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA), Prophet, Seasonal ARIMA (SARIMA), and exponential smoothing models, the research uncovers key seasonal trends and patterns in pollutant levels from 2010 to 2023. To assess the models, Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Theil’s U statistic, and the Ljung-Box test for residual autocorrelation were implemented. The particulate matter (PM2.5) received particular attention in the study because it poses the greatest health risk among measured pollutants, showed the most alarming increasing trend, significantly exceeded WHO guidelines, and demonstrated predictable patterns that enable effective prediction and intervention strategies in the industrially active Port Harcourt city. The SARIMA model showed the best predictive performance for most pollutants, effectively accounting for both seasonal variations and long-term trends. The SARIMA model proved to be the most accurate for predicting PM2.5 with an RMSE of 5.2, MAPE of 7.4%, and Theil’s U of 0.13. The results indicate that SARIMA can be effectively used in Port Harcourt city to evaluate air pollution levels and mitigate harmful health impacts. The agencies responsible for monitoring air quality could leverage this model to assess pollution levels in the near future and establish a system to identify the highest pollution spikes.
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