Ground-level ozone mapping in large urban areas using multivariate statistical analysis: Application to the Sao Paulo Metropolitan Area

A statistical study on the behavior of ground-level O-3 concentration in different regions of a large urban area was carried out, with emphasis on pollutant gas concentrations and meteorological variables. The study was based on data generated by a network of measuring stations distributed throughout the Sao Paulo Metropolitan Area, in regions with different characteristics of traffic and economic activities. The combined application of principal component analysis and clustering techniques to data collected from 1997 until 2000 has led to the identification of implicit relationships between variables that have been associated with dominant processes related to 0, formation in different locations. Similarities between. different regions of the city have also been detected and associated with local characteristics. The results indicate that the application of such statistical techniques to data collected in large urban areas enables the grouping of different regions according to their behavior in terms of O-3 levels, as well as the identification of dominant processes in each group. These techniques are thus important in the planning of air pollution policies, especially in the case of O-3 a pollutant that is not directly related to pollution levels alone.