Chapter 10 - Air quality in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries

ABSTRACT

This chapter presents the status of air quality in the oil-rich six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries located in the Arabian Peninsula, southwest of Asia. Both natural and anthropogenic pollutants affect air quality in the Gulf Cooperation Council. Dust storms are frequent over the region during spring (March-May) and summer (June-August) seasons and load large amounts of dust particles in the atmosphere reducing visibility, affecting human activities, and causing severe air pollution. Unprecedented infrastructure activities, overusing governmental subsidized energy, water desalination plants, heavy traffic in large cities, and industrial plants are largely contributing to the anthropogenic aerosol emissions in the Gulf Cooperation Council region. Dust and aerosol particle deposition affect the marine environment and phytoplankton growth in the Arabian Gulf (AG) and the Sea of Oman (SO). The oil well fire in Kuwait during the 1991 Gulf War I and the drone attack on the oil refineries over Saudi Arabia in 2019 show that the region is vulnerable to war and terrorist attacks that can cause a regional environmental disaster. Morphological characterization of aerosol particles in the Gulf Cooperation Council region shows dust particles mostly dominating with the large intrusion of industrial pollutants. In view of the national and regional lockdown, air quality improved over the large Gulf Cooperation Council cities during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.