Integral assessment of air pollution dispersion regimes in the main industrialized and urban areas in Oman

This paper presents a rather complete picture of conditions of stagnation, recirculation and ventilation factors in the main industrialized and urban areas in Oman, developed along the coastal area. This study focuses on four sites; Sohar, Muscat, Sur, and Salalah. Each site has a local emission sources from transportation, industry and energy production activities. For the calculation of the integral quantities of the ability of the atmosphere dilution, hourly data of the wind velocity measured at a height of 10 m during 5 years (2000–2005) were used in the analysis. The results show that in the northern coast of Oman, along the bay of Sea of Oman, where 56% of the total population is concentrated and the main heavy industries of the country are amassed, the atmosphere is prone to stagnations in 74.4% of the time, while in the southern and east part of Oman, they occur only 23% and 51%, respectively. The bay of sea of Oman is high affected by land–sea breeze circulation that plays a substantial role in the simultaneous occurrence of recirculation equally to stagnation. This meso-scale effect is altered gradually during the passage of the synoptic-scale flow of the southeasterly summer monsoon that enhances the occurrence of the ventilation in Salalah (24.6% of time) and Sur (15.5%). In the northern coast of Oman, where the Hajir mountains suppressed the effect of the summer monsoon, a very weak tendency towards ventilation is observed (less than 6%). The southern summer monsoon over Oman is a source of life in this arid area and as well a source of clean air.