Modeling of Atmospheric Pollution in Urban and Rural Sites Using a Probabilistic and Objective Approach

Atmospheric pollution is affected by different individual pollutants (IP) and climatic factors (CF). In this work, the formulation of the Rasch model is proposed to get representative measures of atmospheric pollution in two urban locations, Badajoz and Caceres, and one rural site, the Monfrague Park (Southwest Spain). After applying the Rasch methodology, the ranking of all days was obtained according to their atmospheric pollution level and the influence on the environmental deterioration of each IP and CF (NO2, NO, SO2, O-3, CO, benzene, PM10, precipitation, relative humidity, solar radiation, air temperature, and barometric pressure). The most influential items on atmospheric pollution are the O-3 and the CF, mainly the lack of precipitation and those related to ozone generation (air temperature and solar radiation). Other IP exert a lower influence at both urban locations, being irrelevant at the Monfrague Park. Unexpected behaviors of the CF or IP can be also analyzed.