Development of an air quality information system for the evaluation of ozone characteristics in Corpus Christi

The historical data of Corpus Christi from 1986-99 were analyzed to identify and evaluate the seasonal and long-term trends. Meteorology greatly influences the ozone concentration in the Corpus Christi urban area. The Kolmogorov-Zurbenko (KZ) method was used to obtain meteorologically adjusted ozone trends. Daily maximum temperature and average wind speed resultant were used as surrogates for meteorological parameters. The results from the analysis indicate an overall upward trend in the ozone levels at CAMS04, while the trend observed at CAMS21 showed a decreasing profile. The variance based on residuals in the ozone time series showed that approximately 70.47--74.49% of variation in the ozone trend at CAMS04 and 78.98--81.89% at CAMS21 was due to the influence of the meteorological conditions. The one-hour averaged ozone data was used to evaluate the seasonal ozone characteristics. A comprehensive database to store the air quality information of the area under study was developed and integrated with the World Wide Web. This air quality information system will help in disseminating the air quality trends and statistics of this area to various agencies and interested parties.