Monitoring
As discussed earlier, the general objective of this study is to determine the air quality within the city of Lautoka in order to assess its potential effects on human health. Air quality data collated from this study will be compared with the WHO ambient air quality standards to establish any variances in the readings. Moreover, the outcome of this study will lead to an understanding of whether the ambient air in Lautoka city is within the WH guidelines and importantly identifying areas of concern.
What to monitor
The common air contaminants that will be measured in this study are particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5), carbon monoxide (CO), sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and ozone (O3). According to \cite{Chen_2008}, these air contaminants are often used as indicator pollutants for fuel combustion and traffic-related air pollution and the study by \cite{Isley_2017} confirms the increasing dependent on fossil fuels, in particular diesel for Pacific Island countries. To provide sufficient data to determine trends in air quality over the 3 months period as well as the background levels of contaminants , the WHO recommended threshhold measurements will be used as shown in Table 3. The ozone guideline value and measurement time has been adopted from the Ambient Air Quality Guidelines (AAQG) of New Zealand. The equipment of choice to conduct this monitoring measures the air contaminants in part per billion (ppb) and the quick reference conversion table provided in the Guide for Air Quality Monitoring and Data Management 2009 and appended in Appendix A will be utilised to convert the measurements from ppb to \(\mu\)g/m3