air pollution

air quality

ranking

multi-criteria decision making

SMAA-2

Pollution prevention

Criteria analysis

Environmental management

Every year environmental authorities in every country publish quality reports on natural elements such as air, water, and soil. Such reports provide insight about these essential elements for the directors of the related regions and give them a chance to take measures when it possesses risk. Air quality varies according to the quantities of the materials in it. Especially during the winter, air pollution is relatively high in some regions depending on meteorological conditions. Numerous pollutants exist in the air, such as particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and ozone. In this study, based on the amounts of the pollutants as criteria, at the first stage 81 cities and at the second stage seven regions of Turkey are ranked according to air quality. The status of the cities and the regions in terms of air quality can be seen with this ranking, which is done using stochastic multi-criteria acceptability analysis (SMAA-2) – a stochastic multicriteria decision-making method.