An Analysis of Ambient Air Quality Conditions Over Delhi, India From 2004 to 2009

Jhumoor Biswas, Era Upadhyay, Mugdha Nayak, Anil Kumar Yadav
DOI: 10.4236/acs.2011.14024                

Abstract

We analyzed 1-hour, 8-hour and 24-hour averaged criteria pollutants (NO₂, SO₂, CO, PM2_2.5, and PM₁₀) during 2004 - 2009 at three observational sites i.e. Income Tax Office (ITO), Sirifort and Delhi College of Engineering (DCE) in Delhi, India. The analysis reveals increased pollutant concentrations at the urban ITO site as compared to the other two sites, suggesting the need to better locate hot spots in designing the monitoring network. There is also significant year to year variation in the design value trends of criteria pollutants at these three sites, which may be attributed to meteorological variations and local-level emission fluctuations. Correlations among criteria pollutants vary annually and spatially from site to site, indicating the heterogeneous nature of air mix. The annual ratios of CO/NO_x are considerably higher than SO₂/NO_x confirming that vehicular source emissions are the primary contributors to air pollution in Delhi. The seasonal analysis of criteria pollutants reveals relatively higher concentrations in winter because of limited pollutant dispersion and lower concentrations during the monsoon period (rainy season). The diurnal averages of criteria pollutants reveal that vehicular emissions strongly influence temporal variations of these pollutants. Weekdays and weekend diurnal averages do not show noticeable differences.

Keywords

Ambient Air Quality Status, Criteria pollutants, Data Analysis

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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