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Exposure assessment of PM2.5 in temple premises and crematoriums in Kanpur, India

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Abstract

Regular use of incense and earthen lamps in temples leads to the release of particulate matter (PM), airborne flecks, and gaseous pollutants. Similarly, the cremation of dead bodies using timber and other accessories such as incense, organic chemicals containing carbon, and clothes generates air pollutants. It is currently unclear how much emissions and exposure these activities may lead. This work attempts to fill this gap in our understanding by assessing the associated emissions of PM2.5 and the corresponding exposure. Ten temples and two cremation grounds were considered for the sampling of PM2.5. The average PM2.5 concentration at the ten temples and the two crematoriums was found to be 658.30 ± 112.63 µg/m3 and 1043.50 ± 191.63 µg/m3, respectively. The range of real-time PM2.5 data obtained from the nearest twelve stations located in the vicinity was 113–191 µg/m3. The exposure assessment in terms of deposition dose was carried out using the ICRP model. The maximum and minimum total respiratory deposition dose rate for PM2.5 for temples was 175.75 µg/min and 101.15 µg/min, respectively. For crematoriums, the maximum and minimum value of same was 252.3 µg/min and 194.31 µg/min, respectively, for an exposure period of 10 min.

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Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This study was carried out as a part of Master’s thesis of Vishal Bhadauria. We thank the support received by the HBTU Kanpur. Prashant Kumar acknowledges the Clean Air Engineering for Cities (CArE-Homes) project, funded by the University of Surrey’s Research England funding under the Global Challenge Research Fund (GCRF) programme.

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  1. Rajiv Ganguly

    Present address: Department of Civil Engineering, Harcourt Butler Technical University, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, 208002, India

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Harcourt Butler Technical University, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, 208002, India

    Vishal Bhadauria, Dipteek Parmar & Abhinav Kumar Rathi

  2. Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford, GU2 7XH, UK

    Prashant Kumar

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  1. Vishal Bhadauria
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Contributions

V.B.: investigation, formal analysis, writing-original draft.

D.P.: conceptualization, visualization, resources, project administration, supervision, writing-review and editing.

R.G.: project administration, formal analysis, writing-review and editing, visualization.

A.K.R.: investigation, formal analysis.

P.K.: writing-review and editing, visualization, supervision.

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Correspondence to Dipteek Parmar.

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The authors would like to clarify that this study was carried out as part of academic research only and wish to emphasize that no religious sentiments were meant to be hurt while conducting the study or presenting the results in the manuscript.

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Bhadauria, V., Parmar, D., Ganguly, R. et al. Exposure assessment of PM2.5 in temple premises and crematoriums in Kanpur, India. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 38374–38384 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-18739-5

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