New Study Corelates Crop Burning Data with Delhi-NCR Pollution Levels to Suggest Effective Pollution Abatement Measures

The study also identified districts from where parali burning has a direct impact on Delhi's PM2.5 levels.

This, the study has claimed, will help bring down the cost and improve the effectiveness of policy actions to reduce the effect of crop residue burning on the ambient PM2.5 concentration in Delhi during the post-monsoon months.

The study titled 'Potential areas of crop residue burning contributing to hazardous air pollution in Delhi during the post-monsoon season' was conducted by Md Hafizur Rahman, Nimish Singh, Seema Kundu and Arindam Datta, and published in the Journal of Environmental Quality in the final week of January 2022.

It rightly takes note of the fact that severe daily ambient particulate matter concentrations (PM2.5) have been recorded in Delhi for about 50 days in the post-monsoon season (October-November) from 2016 to 2019. Monthly average ambient PM2.5 concentrations during the period were found to be September (63.0), October (145.8) and November (233.0).

Pointing out that crop residue burning has been reported as one of the major sources of ambient PM2.5 in Delhi during the period, the study analysed the effect of meteorological parameters and crop residue burning on the ambient PM2.5 concentration in Delhi. The researchers used the dataset from one of the official monitoring stations, the Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory air parcel back trajectory model, and a satellite-based active fire dataset for the years 2016-2019.

During the same period, the study recorded and, therefore, established a significant negative relationship of daily PM2.5 concentrations with meteorological parameters such as wind speed, height, etc., and a positive relationship with the crop residue burning event that occurred three days earlier.

In plain terms, the study claims PM2.5 concentration on a given day was impacted by wind speed and other meteorological factors, but more with how much crop burning had happened three days before.

"This (study) can help policymakers undertake location-specific actions based on meteorological forecasts to reduce the cost and improve the effectiveness of policy actions to reduce the effect of crop residue burning on the ambient PM2.5 concentration in Delhi during the post-monsoon season," the researchers, all four of them from The Energy and Resources Institute's Earth Sciences & Climate Change Division, said.

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The above article has been published from a wire agency with minimal modifications to the headline and text.