Yarivan H. Mohammed^1,, Salih N. Majid¹, Peshawa M. Najmaddin¹

Understanding the generation, transportation, and accumulation of aerosol particulate matter (PM) pollutants in the atmosphere needs an investigation into its geographical and temporal fluctuations. Due to the absence of air quality monitoring stations and insufficient background data about PM issues in developing countries, remote sensing data was used because it has been widely utilized as an alternative to studying PM concentrations. Measurements from satellites and ground measurements introduce a complete overview of particle pollution behaviour. The main aim of this study was to evaluate PM matter concentration for 14 locations over Sulaimani city- Kurdistan region/Iraq from July to November 2021. EPAM 5000 DUST-HAZ meter was used to measure the ground particulate matter concentrations with the aerodynamic diameter for PM1, PM2.5, and PM10. Also, Satellite data at 1-km-resolution by Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer-Aerosol Optical Depth (MODIS-AOD) have been used at 0.550 µm wavelengths have been used. The linear regression model was applied to find the slope between satellite MODIS-AOD values and ground measurement. The Inverse Distance Weight (IDW) interpolation methods were used to map the particulate sizes of PM1, PM2.5, and PM10; their efficiencies were 0.92, 0.95, and 0.91, respectively. The results of ground measurements showed high variability in PM concentration values and ranged between; 7-253, 8-273 and 11-169 µg m^-3 for PM1, PM2.5 and PM10, respectively, among the studied locations during the study periods. MODIS predicted value for PM1, PM2.5 and PM10 ranged between 7.62-59.35, 6.64-43.65, and 50.54-62.17 µg m^-3, respectively. Correlation coefficients between observed and predicted values for September were 0.80, 0.73, and 0.81 for PM1, PM2.5, and PM10, respectively. The main conclusion that can be identified from this study is; that remote sensing data can be used to study PM matter concentration; a dense ground monitoring network is required to improve monitoring and environmental services management in Sulaimani City.

particulate matter concentration, ground measurement, aerosol optical thickness, MODIS satellite, Sulaimani city, linear regression