Comparative study of ground level ozone fluctuation in Urban, Sub Urban and rural residential areas

Ozone (O3) have many adverse impacts toward the living human, environment and O3 formed through the photochemical reaction with the aid of sunlight. Ozone and its precursor concentration have become a worldwide issue due to the excessive anthropogenic activities. Therefore, this study focused on the determination of O3, NO, NO2 concentrations and meteorological parameters (temperature, humidity, wind speed and wind direction) three residential area namely Taman Tun Dr Ismail Jaya (urban area), Taman Delima (sub urban area) and Taman Kifayah (rural area). The monitoring were continuously done for three days in 24 hours from 12 a.m. until 12 a.m. per day at each site. Aeroqual S500 series and weather station model RK900-01 were used to measure O3, NO, NO2 concentrations and meteorological parameters (temperature, humidity, wind speed and wind direction), respectively. The data were monitored at 1 minute average which later converted into 1 hour average. The obtained data were analysed using descriptive statistics to overview O3 and NO2 concentration variation, time series plot to show the fluctuation trend in 24 hours and diurnal plot used to determine them in one complete cycle. Wind rose was used to summarize the wind speed and its direction for each site. The concentration of O3, NO, NO2 and the meteorological parameters were determined and O3 concentration was compared by one way ANOVA. The pvalue obtained was 0.00 which was less than 0.05 showing there is significant different in O3 concentration between the residential areas. The mean concentration of O3 in Taman Tun Dr Ismail Jaya was high (33.3 ppb) but the highest O3 concentration was recorded in Taman Delima due to open burning activity (35.2 ppb). Meanwhile, Taman Kifayah has the lowest concentration of O3 (12.1 ppb). However, the ozone concentration at three residential areas were still under permissible level according to RMAAQ.