This paper focuses on the statistical modeling for the distributions of air pollution index (API) and its sub-indexes data observed at Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Five pollutants or sub-indexes are measured including, carbon monoxide (CO); sulphur dioxide (SO2); nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and; particulate matter (PM10). Four probability distributions are considered, namely log-normal, exponential, Gamma and Weibull in search for the best fit distribution to the Malaysian air pollutants data. In order to determine the best distribution for describing the air pollutants data, five goodness-of-fit criteria’s are applied. This will help in minimizing the uncertainty in pollution resource estimates and improving the assessment phase of planning. The conflict in criterion results for selecting the best distribution was overcome by using the weight of ranks method. We found that the Gamma distribution is the best distribution for the majority of air pollutants data in Kuala Lumpur.

1.
Department of Environment Malaysia (DOE)
.
Malaysia environment quality report
,
2009
.
2.
Department of Environment
.
A guide to air pollutant index in Malaysia (API)
,
1997
.
3.
W. H.
Organization
(WHO), (
1980
).
4.
N.-H.
Hsieh
and
C.-M.
Liao
,
Atmospheric Environment
75
,
206
216
(
2013
).
5.
H. E.
Neustadter
,
S. M.
Sidik
and
J. C. Burr
Jr
, (
1972
).
6.
P.
Oguntunde
,
O.
Odetunmibi
and
A.
Adejumo
,
Journal of Probability and Statistics
2014
(
2014
).
7.
K.
HAI-DONG
and
B.-H.
CHEN
,
Biomedical and Environmental Sciences
,
17
(
3
) (
2004
).
8.
N. M.
Noor
,
C. Y.
Tan
,
N. A.
Ramli.
,
A. S.
Yahaya
,
N. F. F. M.
Yusof
,
Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences
5
(
12
),
2796
2811
(
2011
).
9.
A.M.
Razali
,
A.P.
Desvina
,
M.S.
Sapuan
,
A.
Zaharim
,
Computational Chemistry and Bioscience
(
2012
).
10.
R.
Ramanathan
,
Computers & Industrial Engineering
49
(
4
),
625
628
(
2005
).
11.
N.
Masseran
,
A. M.
Razali
,
K.
Ibrahim
,
A.
Zaharim
and
K.
Sopian
,
Research Journal of Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology
6
(
10
),
1774
1779
(
2013
).
12.
H. C.
Thode
,
Testing for normality
. (
CRC press
,
2002
).
13.
T.
Thadewald
and
H.
Büning
,
Journal of Applied Statistics
34
(
1
),
87
105
(
2007
).
14.
K. P.
Burnham
and
D. R.
Anderson
,
Model selection and multimodel inference: a practical information-theoretic approach
. (
Springer Science & Business Media
,
2003
).
15.
R Development Core Team, R
: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing.
R Foundation for Statistical Computing
,
Vienna, Austria
,
2008
.
16.
Y.
Wang
,
R. C.
Yam
and
M. J.
Zuo
,
Computers & Industrial Engineering
47
(
2
),
165
180
(
2004
).
17.
C.
Tofallis
,
Computers & Industrial Engineering
54
(
3
),
690
694
(
2008
).
This content is only available via PDF.
You do not currently have access to this content.