Paddy Response to Ozone: A Comparison between anIndustrial and Residential Area in Malaysia

Numbers of studies have reported that ozone brings many adverse and crucial effects on paddy. Ozone which is a
secondary pollutant is created by the action of the short wavelength radiation from the sun on its anthropogenic
precursors. The sources are usually coming from the industrial and vehicular emissions. In Malaysia, paddy
fields are located near to the residential areas. The sources of air pollution for these two areas are different,
where the industrial area is usually associated with the emissions from the factories and the vehicles while
residential area is only focused on the vehicles emissions. Thus, this study was carried out to identify the
differences of the paddy reduction between industrial and residential areas in Malaysia by adopting the AOT40
index materials and improvising them depending on the Malaysia actual air quality and paddy data. The results
showed that the paddy reduction in the industrial area during main and off seasons was higher compared to the
residential area. The industrial area contained more phytotoxic gases than the residential area which lead to the
higher reduction in the paddy production. Besides, the paddy reduction during the off season was higher in both
areas, compared to the main season. This situation happened perhaps due to the increasing in stomatal
conductance and the ozone uptake by leaves during the monsoon season, which resulted in more paddy yield
loss.