Page 32 - 2023

Ph.D.
(Engineering & Technology)
EVALUATION OF AMBIENT AIR QUALITY ATTRIBUTES AND
DEVELOPMENT OF A COMPOSITE AIR QUALITY INDEX

Ph.D. Scholar : Shah Dipsha Pareshkumar
Research Supervisor : Dr. Piyush J. Patel

Regi. No.: 16146051001
Abstract :
Air is a vital and principal resource for the survival of human life with water and land. Air
pollution is considered a serious environmental threat in Asian cities, especially in India.
The majority of the Indian population is exposed to poor air quality, thus leading to severe
health hazards. As per the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study in 2019 published in the
Lancet journal, air pollution is one of India's top five risk factors for death. The 2020 World
Air Quality report based on the concentration of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) states
that India is at 3rd rank and Delhi, the capital of India, is at 1st rank with an annual
average concentration of PM2.5, which is almost five and eight times more than the
target suggested by World Health Organization (WHO) (IQAir, 2020).

Under the National Air Quality Monitoring Program (NAMP) and State Air Quality
Monitoring Program (SAMP), several ambient air quality monitoring stations are
established in India, which generate an enormous amount of ambient air quality data.
This huge chunk of monitoring data is neither useful to decision-makers/scientists nor
the commoners who simply want to know how good or bad the air is. The concept of an
air quality indexing system developed by the US EPA based on maximum operating
function is used in India to show the current air quality status. The disadvantage of the
present air quality indexing system is that it is based on the concentration of only one
pollutant at a time. Hence, it cannot show whether more than one pollutant
simultaneously exceeds the daily national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) or not.
The US EPA based index seems a bit arbitrary and over-simplified, especially in the
context of such severe pollution concerns. In the current air quality indexing systems, the
synergetic effect of pollutants has not been considered. There may be a possibility that a
combination of pollutants at a concentration below the standards may increase harmful
effects on human health, living organisms, materials, and monuments. They may cause
new or currently unknown problems. To overcome the limitations of the US EPA based
Indian air quality indexing system, there is a necessity to develop a new Composite Air
Quality Index (CAQI), considering various factors such as an appropriate method of
indexing without ambiguity and eclipsing, synergetic effects of pollutants, and
aggregation of pollutants and number of pollutants as maximum as possible to be
monitored.
07