Persistent Ambient Air Pollution in Turkey: A 4-Year Analysis

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Ambient air pollution is an important cause of morbidity and mortality for both individual and public health. The major contaminant that creates air pollution in Turkey is particulate matter. This study aims to demonstrate Turkey's air quality in terms of particulate matter in the last 4 years. MATERIAL AND METHODS: In this descriptive study, the public data of the National Air Quality Monitoring Network between the years 2016 and 2019 were analyzed for particulate matter (PM10). Stations with less than 75\% data throughout the year were excluded from the evaluation while calculating the annual average values. The averages of the years were compared statistically with each other. RESULTS: For 111 stations that made sufficient measurements for 4 years, the annual median value of particulate matter remained constant in 12 stations (10.8\%), increased in 26 stations (23.4\%), and decreased in 73 stations (65.7\%). The level of air pollution at 18 stations has been sustained for 4 years. It has been observed that there is no significant improvement in the criterion that the daily average PM10 level should not be higher than 50 mu g/m(3) for more than 35 days, and pollution is detected above the limit value permitted by the World Health Organization in all provinces and stations except a few provinces every year. Finally, during the 4-year observation, the number of stations that did not make sufficient measurements throughout the year has been found to increase over the years. CONCLUSION: Our data reveal that the air pollution attributable to particulate matter in Turkey between the years 2016 and 2019 did not regress prominently. On the contrary, air pollution has been found to gain permanency in certain provinces, and air quality monitoring has been inadequate due to insufficient measurement activities of some of the stations.