Integrated Air Quality Monitoring System: It an Effective Tool for Deploying Strategy?

In this article, the authors highlight that the first step in solving the problem of air pollution in India is to create a national and sub-national integrated monitoring structure. The structure will include the conventional monitoring set-up, dispersion models, and the new strategies of low-cost sensors and satellite measurements. This structure will provide the information of absolute concentrations and pinpoint the polluting sources both temporally and spatially, resulting in intensifying the efforts from all stakeholders towards a common aim of a cleaner future.

- Mr Nimish Singh

In the past two decades, India has seen continuous deterioration in its air quality. The Health Effects Institute (2018) report estimated a rise in annual deaths due to air pollution from 1.1 million in 2015 to 1.7 million in 2030 in India alone. In the backdrop of COVID-19, this number might increase further as the study conducted by Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health has established a correlation between COVID-19 mortality and long-term exposure to air pollution.

Exposure to air pollution is higher in urban areas, especially in the Indo- Gangetic region, due to the high population density in these parts. The Indo-Gangetic plain is home to more than 400 million people with a population density of 390 people per sq. km, making it one of the most densely populated regions in the world. Coupled with this, as per the IQ air report of mostpolluted cities of the world for 2020, out of 15 cities, 13 are from India, and all of them lie in Indo-Gangetic plains. It is resulting in high per capita exposure in the region.

In the backdrop of such conditions, central and state governments under the National Air Quality Monitoring Programme (NAMP) have ramped up air quality monitoring networks in major cities. At present, there are 573 operating manual stations in 240 cities/ towns in 26 states and 5 Union Territories of the country. The estimated cost of establishing a monitoring station in India is about ₹1.5–2.5 crore. Additionally, as of April 2021, about 278 continuous ambient air quality monitoring stations (CAAQMS) are operational in 148 cities across the country. This set up helps identify hotspots or areas that are in urgent need of air pollution mitigation action. But it falls short on mainlytwo fronts: i) spatial and geographical coverage, ii) pinpointing contribution from the source mix in an area.