The Spatial Influence of Environmental and Anthropogenic Factors on the Pattern of Air Pollution in Malaysia

Abstract

Air contaminant levels experience a large degree of spatial dimension. This study is an attempt to address the issue of spatially related human-made activities that cause distribution air pollutants over the geographic area. PM10 variable within 16-year annual observations (2000-2015) from 37 fixed monitoring stations across Peninsular Malaysia was analysed. Spatial analysis was performed using Exploratory Regression, Ordinary Least Square Regression, spatial autocorrelation, and kriging interpolation in ArcGIS software version 10.5. Generally, the variance inflation factor for all the exploratory variables was below 7.5, indicating the absence of multicollinearity among them. The adjusted R2 was in the range of 0.3-0.4 for the selected sub-model. Only industrial land use and RH were significant predictors in the selected sub-model. The initial profiling of PM10 using geographic information system (GIS) was able to identify the relevant spatial relationship leading to the identification of monitoring stations area either belongs to a hotspot or cold spots.