AirQo Blogs
2 min readOct 19, 2021

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AIR QUALITY OUTLOOK

SUMMARY

Overview of the Air Quality network in Uganda as at 08:00 (13-Oct-2021)

Pollution variations over a 24-hour period conform to the same pattern for all monitored areas with higher pollution levels from 02:00 to 5:00 (morning hours) and 16:00 to 23:00 (evening hours), while lower pollution levels occur between 09:00 and 14:00. As stated in an earlier blog post, this pattern not unique to Uganda is accounted for by daily meteorological influence precipitated by the pollution generating activities within the monitored areas.

If we account for the seasonal variations, we find that the rainfall season had a strong suppression effect on PM2.5 levels with a reduction of up to 42% (from ~27µg/m3) and 50% (from ~30µg/m3) in the lowest the averages for urban and background locations respectively. These changes underscore the significance of meteorology in understanding air quality.

DIURNAL VARIATIONS

LOCATIONS OUTSIDE KAMPALA

SEASONAL VARIATIONS

DAILY PROFILE

Aggregated daily AQI for the 3-month period

Average daily air quality levels were largely within the unhealthy zones for the 3-month period. Although Greater Kampala experiences higher pollution levels than the rest of the country, we note that commercial centres and major roads (urban locations) are relatively comparable throughout the country.

LEGEND: UNDERSTANDING AIR QUALITY INDEX (AQI)

MONTHLY VARIATIONS

LOCATIONS OUTSIDE GREATER KAMPALA

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