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What Do We Know About Air Pollution ? — India Case Study Governments in South
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Abstract | P articulate matter is the most serious pollutant in large cities in South Asia. There are many sources of particulate pollution: large industrial plants, medium-and small-scale industries, refuse burning, households burning biomass for cooking and heating, vehicular exhaust, re-suspended road dust, construction, particles migrating from other regions, and naturally occurring dust. These sources emit particles of varying sizes—small particles affect public health much more than large particles. It is important to have a good understanding of the level of exposure of the general public to particulate air pollution, and of the relative contributions of these different sources (referred to as source apportionment). Ambient air quality has been monitored in India since 1967. There were 204 monitoring stations in operation in 2001. Sulfur dioxide (SO 2), nitrogen dioxide (NO 2) and total suspended particles (TSP) have been historically monitored on a regular basis. Respiratory suspended particulate matter (RSPM), with the particle diameter cutoff somewhere near 10 microns (µm), has been added recently at a number of monitoring stations, totaling 77 by the end of 2000. TSP is much less relevant to the health impact of air pollution than RSPM and smaller particles. For this reason the trend worldwide is to focus increasingly on measuring the concentration of smaller particles which can penetrate deeper into human respiratory systems. For example, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) discontinued monitoring of TSP in 1987 in favor of PM 10 (particles smaller than 10 µm), and achieved its first year of nationwide monitoring of PM 2.5 (smaller than 2.5 µm) in 1999. Governments in South Asia are urged to address urban air pollution as a matter of high priority in its most affected cities. In order to devise effective intervention measures, however, we need to understand which sources are responsible for the high exposure of the general public to air pollution. Tata Energy Research Institute (Teri) in Delhi recently reviewed the information available since 1990 in India to answer this question [1]. Their report shows that gaps in data and analysis are sufficiently large to make answering this important question difficult. This briefing note summarizes key findings in that report. The available data in India show that pollutant concentrations are typically within the national ambient air quality standards [2] with the exception of particles. A recent case study [3] monitored RSPM twice a week at 10 stations in Delhi over a 13-month period between July … |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://siteresources.worldbank.org/PAKISTANEXTN/Resources/UrbanAir/WhatDoWeKnow.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
