Analysis of Air Quality in Nigeria

Abstract:

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), air pollution kills approximately 7 million people worldwide every year, of which 4.2 million deaths are attributable to ambient (outdoor) air pollution. This problem is particularly acute in Africa due to rapid urban and industrial development, traditional cook stove practices, and lack of effective regulation and monitoring. In 2016, Nigeria ranked third in the world for disability-adjusted life years (years lost of “healthy life”) due to ambient air pollution, at 4,045 per 100,000 habitants. Despite these statistics, there is little ground-based monitoring infrastructure for measuring air quality in Nigeria. In this context, space-based observations of air pollution become particularly useful. This project entails providing a satellite space-based remote sensing view of air pollution in the Lagos area, gathering official Nigeria and Lagos government information/resources on air quality and summarizing current knowledge based on international reports and scientific papers. We show in-situ measurements of air quality species such as Particular Matter (PM) 2.5 obtained by the SPARTAN network as well as satellite-derived products. In particular, we look at PM2.5 derived from MODIS, MISR and SeaWIFS Aerosol Optical Depth (van Donkelaar et al., 2016).

van Donkelaar, A., R. V. Martin, M. Brauer, N. C. Hsu, R. A. Kahn, R. C. Levy, A. Lyapustin, A. M. Sayer, and D. M. Winker. 2016. Global Estimates of Fine Particulate Matter Using a Combined Geophysical-Statistical Method with Information from Satellites. Environmental Science & Technology 50 (7): 3762-3772. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5b05833.