TY - JOUR
T1 - Large inter annual variation in air quality during the annual festival 'Diwali' in an Indian megacity
AU - Parkhi, Neha
AU - Chate, Dilip
AU - Ghude, Sachin D.
AU - Peshin, Sunil
AU - Mahajan, Anoop
AU - Srinivas, Reka
AU - Surendran, Divya
AU - Ali, Kaushar
AU - Singh, Siddhartha
AU - Trimbake, Hanumant
AU - Beig, Gufran
N1 - Funding Information:
Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune is supported by the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Government of India, New Delhi. Authors acknowledge the encouragement extended by Dr. M. Rajeevan, Director, IITM; Dr. Shailesh Nayak, Secretary and Dr. Swati Basu, Advisor, MoES and appreciate the efforts of entire team involved in SAFAR.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015.
PY - 2016/5/1
Y1 - 2016/5/1
N2 - A network of air quality and weather monitoring stations was established under the System of Air Quality Forecasting and Research (SAFAR) project in Delhi. We report observations of ozone (O3), nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO) and particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) before, during and after the Diwali in two consecutive years, i.e., November 2010 and October 2011. The Diwali days are characterised by large firework displays throughout India. The observations show that the background concentrations of particulate matter are between 5 and 10 times the permissible limits in Europe and the United States. During the Diwali-2010, the highest observed PM10 and PM2.5 mass concentration is as high as 2070 μg/m3 and 1620 μg/m3, respectively (24 hr mean), which was about 20 and 27 times to National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). For Diwali-2011, the increase in PM10 and PM2.5 mass concentrations was much less with their peaks of 600 and of 390 μg/m3 respectively, as compared to the background concentrations. Contrary to previous reports, firework display was not found to strongly influence the NOx, and O3 mixing ratios, with the increase within the observed variability in the background. CO mixing ratios showed an increase. We show that the large difference in 2010 and 2011 pollutant concentrations is controlled by weather parameters.
AB - A network of air quality and weather monitoring stations was established under the System of Air Quality Forecasting and Research (SAFAR) project in Delhi. We report observations of ozone (O3), nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO) and particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) before, during and after the Diwali in two consecutive years, i.e., November 2010 and October 2011. The Diwali days are characterised by large firework displays throughout India. The observations show that the background concentrations of particulate matter are between 5 and 10 times the permissible limits in Europe and the United States. During the Diwali-2010, the highest observed PM10 and PM2.5 mass concentration is as high as 2070 μg/m3 and 1620 μg/m3, respectively (24 hr mean), which was about 20 and 27 times to National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). For Diwali-2011, the increase in PM10 and PM2.5 mass concentrations was much less with their peaks of 600 and of 390 μg/m3 respectively, as compared to the background concentrations. Contrary to previous reports, firework display was not found to strongly influence the NOx, and O3 mixing ratios, with the increase within the observed variability in the background. CO mixing ratios showed an increase. We show that the large difference in 2010 and 2011 pollutant concentrations is controlled by weather parameters.
KW - Air quality
KW - Diwali
KW - Fireworks
KW - Particulate pollution
KW - System of Air Quality Forecasting and Research (SAFAR)
KW - Trace gases
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84957658301&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jes.2015.08.015
DO - 10.1016/j.jes.2015.08.015
M3 - Article
C2 - 27155433
AN - SCOPUS:84957658301
VL - 43
SP - 265
EP - 272
JO - Journal of Environmental Sciences
JF - Journal of Environmental Sciences
SN - 1001-0742
ER -