10th International Aerosol Conference September 2 - September 7, 2018 America's Center Convention Complex St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Abstract View
Spatial and Seasonal Variation of Particulate Matter Concentration in Kharagpur-A Mid Sized Town in India
NEHA RANI, B.S Sastry, Kaushik Dey, Indian Institute Of Technology Kharagpur
Abstract Number: 1137 Working Group: Aerosol Modeling
Abstract This study represents the spatial and seasonal variation in concentration of particulate matter (PM10, PM2.5 and PM1) of Kharagpur town, India. Kharagpur (220 30' N, 870 72 20' E) is a mid-sized town in Gangetic West Bengal with a population of 207,604. To conduct the study, 32 sites from Kharagpur, were selected and categorized into residential, traffic, commercial and sensitive zone. A one year monitoring has been conducted from October 2014 to September 2015 and a 10 minute data has been taken for each site in every weekend till one year with the help of GRIMM Aerosol spectrometer 1.108. This study gives a detailed account about the annual and seasonal variation of coarse, fine and submicron aerosol concentration throughout the Kharagpur town. The PM data analysis showed that the annual average concentration of PM10, PM2.5 and PM1in study area ranged from 182-365 μg/m3, 102-122 μg/m3 and 79.81-88.67 μg/m3 respectively. The maximum PM10 concentration was found in commercial zone and minimum concentration in sensitive zone. For PM2.5 and PM1, the maximum concentration was observed for traffic zone and minimum was found for residential zone. The seasonal PM data analysis showed highest concentration of PM10 (740μg/m3) in commercial area and highest concentration of PM2.5 (310 μg/m3) and PM1 (237 μg/m3) in traffic zone. The PM10, PM2.5 and PM1 concentrations were typically higher during winter season due to prevailing inversion condition causes trapping the pollutants. The significantly high concentration of PM2.5 and PM1 of traffic zone during winter might be the reason of poor dispersion conditions and suspension of fine particles in the ambient air for longer period due to vehicle movement and traffic activities. The submicron fraction of aerosol has been also studied and found that the mean and maximum concentrations of PM2.5/PM10 and PM1/PM10 ratios during winter season were slightly higher than summer and monsoon seasons for all the zones. This result also exhibit a condition of poor dispersion and consequently trapping of fine particulates.