Air Quality Scenario of the World’s Most Polluted City Kanpur: A Case Study

Abstract

Rapid industrialization and urbanization are paving a way for emerging economies to become more advanced, but these activities also trigger environmental problems. Among many of these problems, the biggest and the most persistent is the air pollution. According to the WHO database, Indian cities are leading the list of world’s most polluted cities, with 14 of the 15 cities featuring in the list are Indians, which has been declared badly affected due to air pollution, and the worst among them is Kanpur. Years of studies and research have recognized the industrial sector as mainly responsible for polluting the city. As reported by Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, during winter months, the major contributor to air pollution is particulate matter like dust and soot accounting for around 76%, 15% has been contributed by biomass burning and about 8% by emissions from vehicle, whereas, in summer season, the percentage contribution of particulate matter came down to 35% with equal contribution from vehicular emissions. Meteorological data reveals that 20–80% part of the day mostly during winter months, the average wind speed remains between 2 and 4 m/s. This shows that the dispersion of pollutants in the winter season is very less, trapping particulates and toxic metals in the atmosphere to remain persistent for months. The exposure to these pollutants resulted in harmful diseases linked to the cardiovascular system, respiratory systems, nervous system, premature birth, mortality, and illness. Various efforts have been initiated by the authorities to control the increasing level of pollution, like constructing new roads and pavements, mass rapid transit service to cut car pollution, planting more trees and promoting battery-operated transport. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change is also making a budgetary allocation of about 7 billion rupees ($104 million) for installing more systems to monitor air quality in cities and installing equipment to settle the dust like water sprinklers. Despite all these efforts, the Air Quality Index of the city has remained much below the national average. In this scenario, this paper focuses on the studies made so far associated with the causes, sources, impacts, and outcomes related to air pollution levels in the city from the available literature. This paper has also highlighted the air pollution scenario of neighboring country China and its policies intervention in battling against a similar situation.