Vulnerability of Indian cities with half million population to Ambient PM 2.5 Exposure
Student name: Ms Rupali Pal
Guide: Dr Anu Rani Sharma
Year of completion: 2017
Host Organisation: Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Dr Sagnik Dey
Abstract: Rapid population growth, urbanization, economic development & transportation are
the major propulsion in large cities, especially in megacities. Due to increasing
migration to the Indian cities, they are expanding, which consequently exerts
pressure on the environment. Release of air pollutants has also changed over Indian
cities which increases the vulnerability. In India, half million of population exceeds
the World Health Organization air quality guidelines posing potential health
implications.
A developing country like India with huge population and more vulnerability
towards increased level of pollutants in their major cities and less focus on the
smaller cities needs to be addressed with a holistic approach. In this study, we have
examined vulnerabilities of selected Indian cities with >0.5 million population (109
cities) to ambient PM 2.5 exposure. Among the 109 cities, most of the cities of State
Uttar Pradesh & Bihar are found to be highly vulnerable to PM 2.5 after
consideration to the socio-economic factors. The average mean concentration of
PM 2.5 were found to be highest for Noida (100.9µg/m
3
)) and lowest over Kohima (17
µg/m
3
) . PM 2.5 trends were highest positive over Ghaziabad (2.63) whereas Shimla (-
0.32) has shown the negative trend of PM 2.5, with updated & bias corrected direct
measurements. Bihar showed the highest baseline mortality rate for Chronic
Pulmonary Disease (353.7), Ischemic heart disease (287.7) & stroke (211) from
ambient PM 2.5 Exposure. These factors were found to be making the cities more
vulnerable towards health risk. Further, capital city of Delhi was found to be more
focused in terms of air-quality monitoring as higher number of air quality
monitoring stations can reveal the actual pollution level of the city. However,
smaller cities are found to be highly vulnerable which lies mostly in the region of
Indo-Gangetic plains, where air quality monitoring instruments are not present.
Keywords: Air Quality, Indian Cities with half million population, Ambient PM 2.5
Exposure, Vulnerability
