Abstract

This work estimates the horizontal pollution potential using wind impact area diagrams obtained by using standard deviations to calculate angles of spread of the pollutants, whose concentrations were thus determined downwind. The results showed that winds in Makurdi during the period under study were consistently south-easterly. November and February were marked with low concentrations of pollutants, while large values of pollutants were observed in October, January and December, having large horizontal dilution potentials. Sulphate compounds (SO_x) had the highest predicted mean concentration of 56.7 μgm^-3, while carbon monoxide (CO) had the lowest predicted mean concentration of 24.1 μgm^-31000 m downwind of the sources.

Key words: Horizontal pollution potential, impact area, standard deviation, wind rose, wind speed, wind direction.