TIME-SERIES ANALYSIS OF POLLUTANTS IN EAST COAST PENINSULAR MALAYSIA

Abstract

In keeping abreast with the country's rapid economic development and to meet with the nation's aspiration for an improved quality of life, clean-air legislation limiting industrial and automobile emissions was adopted in 1978. Yet, until today, air pollution from both sources still imposes a dilemma for the nation. In order to predict the status of future air quality in Malaysia,a Box-Jenkins ARIMA approach was applied to modelling the time series of monthly maximum 1-hour carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide concentrations in the East Coast states ofPeninsular Malaysia, i.e. Terengganu, Pahang and Kelantan, respectively. Inall the states, both carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) concentrations have shown a fairly consistent upward trend since 1996. Nevertheless, the forecasting value till 2016 didn't exceed the permissible values of both NAAQS and DOE Malaysia which are 35 and 30 ppm at 1-hour average for CO and 0.053 and 0.17 ppm for NOx.