Abstract

The atmospheric rate of dust fall has been reported to be the pollution indicator of urban area of Northwest of Balochistan, Pakistan. The multiplicity and complexity of sources of atmospheric dusts in urban regions has put forward the need of distribution of these sources indicating their contribution to specific environmental receptor. The present study is focused on investigation of the rate of dust fall in Quetta valley. The prediction equations were developed by using auto regressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) modeling to forecast the rate of dust fall at three different locations out of selected sites in Quetta from 2004 to 2008. Such a study would help us decide about controlling the pollutants particularly heavy and toxic metals present in the particulate matters. All the stochastic models have been critically analyzed on various climatic parameters and ARIMA model was found a relatively better forecaster for the rate of dust fall.

Key words: Particulate matter, heavy metals, auto regressive integrated moving average (ARIMA), Stochasting modeling, Markov transition matrix (MTM).