Local Atmospheric Pollution Evolution through Time Series Analysis

The monitoring and improvement of air quality are fundamental issues, given the possible effects of air pollution on human health. The analysis, in an Alpine Italian province, of the dynamic pattern of mutual relations among air pollutants is the main aim of the present study. In particular, the interest is the proposal of a procedure that can be used to analyse the pollution level trend. The procedure is: first, the estimation of an unobserved common component that we consider a pollution indicator and, then, the analysis of the component evolution in order to assess whether any improvement in the pollution level has been observed during the last decade. The empirical analysis is conducted through a dynamic multiple time series model with a common autoregressive stochastic factor. The results show that some improvement in the level of air pollution has been achieved, especially in the most recent years.