Comparative Time-Series Analysis of the Air Quality of Urban and Suburban Areas in the Philippines from 2020 to 2025

Air pollution is one of the major global concerns impacting the pillars of sustainability—economic, environmental, and social factors. In the Philippines, air pollution continues to deteriorate due to multiple factors, as reflected in the exceeding threshold value of the country’s air quality parameters set by the World Health Organization (WHO). With the rapid urbanization of the country, research shows that building morphology affects the air flow in urban and rural areas, contributing to air pollution concentration.

This study aims to compare and analyze the concentrations of the key pollutants—PM_2.5, CO, NO₂, and SO₂—from the open dataset of Copernicus Sentinel-5P Precursor in association with the building morphology and meteorological factors of urban and suburban areas over the past five years. Moreover, two analytical methods were conducted: (1) a multivariate time-series analysis was performed to examine the trend of air pollutants in correlation with meteorological factors and urban morphology in these areas, and (2) a comparative analysis was performed to assess the similarities and differences of pollution concentrations across geographical areas. The results indicate that the concentration of the key pollutants is slightly higher in the urban areas than in the suburban areas. This pattern may be attributed to the morphology of geographical areas with low-rise and medium-rise buildings, which predominate in suburban areas, indicating a better air flow in these areas. These findings formulate recommendations that will benefit geographical areas in targeted air quality mitigation.