Temporal and regional change of some air pollution parameters in Bursa Mehmet Cetin 1 & Ayse Kalayci Onac 1 & Hakan Sevik 2 & Busra Sen 2 Received: 10 November 2018 /Accepted: 3 December 2018 # Springer Nature B.V. 2018 Abstract Air pollution is one of the most important problems that modern urban life brings nowadays. Every year, thousands of people are affected by air pollution and it even causes deaths. There are certain places and hours that the air pollution is more intense in the cities, which is especially problematic for people with various health problems and this situation affect people’ s quality of life negatively. For this reason, measuring regional and temporal changes of air pollution by scientific studies will guide the determination of the precautions to avoid negative effects of air pollution on people’ s health. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the air quality based on CO 2 amount and amount of particulate matter in 6 different dimensions (0.3-μm, 0.5-μm, 1.0-μm, 2.5-μm, 5.0-μm, and 10.0-μm dimensions), and to determine the change in sound level on a regional basis depending on the time of day and the season in different areas of Bursa city center. The results of the study showed that the effect of season on noise and CO 2 was statistically insignificant, but the particulate matter dimensions are affected at statistically 99.9% confidence level by season. On the other hand, results of the analyses held during the study showed that time factor affects all parameters except noise parameter and the amount of large size (5 and 10); and the place factor effects all the parameters except the amount of particulate matter of size 2.5 and 5.0. The location season time factor was found to be effective at 99.9% confidence level over all parameters. Keywords Air quality . Particulate matter . CO 2 . Noise Introduction In 2000, 47% (2.9 billion people) of the world’ s population live in urban areas, and by 2030, 60% of the world’ s popula- tion is expected to live in cities (Yuksel 2008). More than two thirds of the total populations in European countries live in urban areas. According to the data gathered from the Turkish Statistical Institute Address Based Population Registration System, the proportion of residents in city and district centers rose to 92.1% in 2015 and the proportion of residents living in towns and villages was recorded as 7.9% (URL-1 2017). At the same time, migration from the rural to urban is still going on, and the population of the urban areas is expected to increase further (Kaya 2010; Kaya et al. 2018a, b; Cetin et al. 2017a, b; Kaya et al. 2018a, b). However, the increase in the number of people living in urban areas, and therefore the increase in the number of people living in the unit area, caused many problems. This process causes the destruction of nature, pollution of air, water, and soil, and destruction of the ecological balance (Brooks and Cetin 2013; Cetin 2013; Cetin 2015a, 2015b; Cetin 2016a; Kulac and Yildiz 2016; Abualqumboz et al. 2017; Begum et al. 2008; Deary et al. 2016; Sevik et al. 2018; Kaya 2010; Kaya et al. 2018; Cetin et al. 2017a, 2017b; Kaya et al. 2018; Yucedag et al. 2018). Air pollution in the urban spaces is one of the most important of these problems (Sevik et al. 2016; Abualqumboz et al. 2017; Begum et al. 2008; Deary et al. 2016; Sevik et al. 2018). Air pollution can be defined as the existence of one or more pollutants in the atmosphere as much and long as being effec- tive on human, plant, and animal life that could damage com- mercial or private properties or environmental quality (Kaya 2009; Kaya et al. 2009; Cetin et al. 2018a, 2018b, 2018c, 2018d, 2018e; Sevik et al. 2018). Although particulate matter from these pollutants has been known for many years and many studies have been done on pollutants, CO 2 is one of * Mehmet Cetin mcetin@kastamonu.edu.tr 1 Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Department of Landscape Architecture, Kastamonu University, 37150 Kastamonu, Turkey 2 Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Department of Environmental Engineering, Kastamonu University, 37150 Kastamonu, Turkey Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health https://doi.org/10.1007/s11869-018-00657-6