Assessment of PM10 concentrations fluctuation in urban and rural school environment due to the influence of meteorological factors

This study was carried out to determine the difference of concentration of Particulate Matter with aerodynamic diameter less than 10 micron (PM10) between urban and rural area and to investigate the influence of meteorological factors to PM10 variation. The samples are statistically analysed to investigate the influence of relative humidity, temperature, rainfall depth and wind speed on the concentration of PM10. The air samples were collected from May until June 2016. The study area chosen for the study are school area at Kubang Kerian for urban area and Batu Melintang for rural area. The concentration of PM10 shows that the concentration is higher in urban areas than in rural areas. The concentration was determined by using Gravimetric method and analysed by using Pearson correlation and Multiple Linear Regression (MLR). From the analysis, there were no significant value was found from the correlation but temperature shows a positively correlated in both study area with correlation (r) value 0.599 (urban) and 0.154 (rural). From the MLR analysis, the temperature and rainfall depth shows a high degree of association with concentration of PM10 which is for temperature 20% for urban and 15% for rural. Meanwhile for rainfall depth are 30% for urban and 10% for rural. It shows that both of these factors are the most influential factors on concentration of PM10