Riyadh King Khalid International Airport faces heavy pollution due to frequent dust storms and airplane emissions. Oizom helped in monitoring the air quality of the airport by installing Polludrone (Outdoor air pollution sensor). Polludrone acquired the pollution data and analyzed the historical data and trends. With this solution, the airport authorities were able to identify the source and generate alerts. When in cases of high pollution levels in the airport vicinity.

Riyadh King Khalid International Airport is the second largest airport in Saudi Arabia. A huge number of travelers transit through the airport each year increasing the air traffic at KKIA. One of the major issues in the aviation industry is the assessment, control, and reduction of air emissions. The airplane’s engine produces pollutants like CO2, CO, SOx, and NOx. Apart from this, activities like loading-unloading of goods, refueling the engines, etc. also contribute to pollution generation. At KKIA, dust storms are very frequent, which causes Particulate Matter (PM) generation. PM2.5 and PM10 are the prime pollutants due to these dust storms. Which are the main reason for acute asthma in the citizens. Thus, to solve the pollution problem at the airport and to curb its impact on people’s health, the authorities needed to monitor the real-time pollution. Based on real-time data, they can take corrective measures and generate alerts.

Oizom took the project and deployed Polludrone (outdoor air pollution sensor) to monitor the Air Quality at KKIA. Installation of Polludrone in the airport vicinity to estimate the contribution of each pollution source. The Polludrone monitored all major pollutants like PM1, PM2.5, PM10, NO, NO2, SO2, O3, H2S, CO, CO2, Noise, Temp, Humidity, and Wind speed, direction. The monitored data is shown in real-time to the authorities on the Oizom Terminal, which offers them analytics to take suggestive actions. Also, data-driven actions can increase the safety of flights while taking off and landing, especially during heavy dust storms. The objective of this project was to analyze the pollution trend in the airport region and then create awareness about the air quality data to the travellers.

Capturing real-time dust particulate data from the Riyadh airport helped Envisat and the airport authorities to understand the pollution trend. With this trend analysis, the root cause of the air traffic can be identified, and the solution can provide actionable insights to bring improvement to the system. Also, the historical data can help to predict any upcoming dust storm and can suggest preventive actions aforehand to mitigate the after-effects.