TITLE:
Industrial Air Pollutants Investigation in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria
AUTHORS:
Oluseyi Enitan Ogunsola, Emmanuel Iruka Njoku, Olalekan David Ayokunnu
KEYWORDS:
Industrial Air Pollutants, Crude Oil Pollutants, Anomalous Variation, Air Quality Improvement and Air Pollution Problem
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.10 No.7,
July
21,
2023
ABSTRACT: The discovery and exploitation of crude oil in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria by the various Petroleum Companies have greatly enhanced the nation’s economy. However, practices linked to their discovery, growth and production operations have important and detrimental local effects on the ambient atmosphere. A good understanding and quantification of the concentrations of the greenhouse gases in this region including those of CO2, CH4, O3 and NO2 as a by-product of crude oil and pollutants could assist in their mitigation. Thus, this work investigates the anomalous variation of these pollutants and their trends in the Niger Delta region to develop control strategies that will enhance the mitigations leading to air quality improvement in this region of Nigeria. The CH4 and NO2 data utilized in this work were sourced from the European Space Agency (ESA) for 10 years from January 2003 to December 2012. The same data period of 10 years was obtained for the tropospheric ozone (O3) concentrations from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), while a data period of six (6) years was obtained for CO2 concentrations from six (6) experimental sites around the gas-flaring stations in the Niger Delta region from January 2005 to December 2010. However, 17 other sites with no gas-flaring records were selected as the control in both the Northern and Western regions of Nigeria. The analyses of the concentrations of these Pollutants were carried out using a descriptive statistical approach including regression and correlation analysis. The One-Way ANOVA was also utilized in comparing the concentrations of these pollutants in the flare region of the Niger Delta region to those of the non-flare region of Nigeria to be able to determine their statistical significance. The results of analyses showed that CH4 concentrations were the main contributor to the air pollution problem in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria followed by CO2. While for the non-flare stations considered, NO2 has the highest concentration index aside from CO2.