Forecast of Atmospheric Air Safety in Big Cities of Ukraine

The paper deals with the method of predicting the safety of air in major cities of Ukraine. Atmospheric air safety in 7 major cities of Ukraine is forecasted until 2020. The informational basis of the study consists of 14 indicators (indices), 5 of which are related to emissions of pollutants into the air, and the other 8 represent the concentration of the most common pollutants in the air. In addition, the atmosphere pollution index indicator (API) is used. The evaluation of the safety of the air was carried out in several stages: first - the analysis of the original data and preliminary calculations; second - the calculation of weight coefficients; third - the computation of the air safety coefficient for each city. The calculations have showed that by the level of safety, Kharkiv is considerably ahead of the other cities under study. The highest degree of safety of the air was in 2008 and the lowest was in 2006. The predictive data indicate that the factor of safety of the atmospheric air of Kharkiv in the coming years will reach about 0,008 or [(8*10)]^(-3). Kyiv, Lviv and Odesa have a medium level of air safety. In Odesa, the situation is greatly worsened by the high concentration of formaldehyde in the atmosphere, and in Kiev and Lviv, the environmental problems are associated with mobile sources of pollution. The industrial giants Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia have a low level of air safety. The threatening situation in these cities is caused by the steel and nonferrous metals, machinery and coal mining enterprises.