Recommendations for Improving Aerosol Measurement in India

SATOSHI TAKAHAMA, Arindam Roy, Athanasios Nenes, LAPI, EPFL (Switzerland)

     Abstract Number: 629
     Working Group: Instrumentation and Methods

Abstract
Heterogeneous source distribution and mixed land-use patterns have made India and other countries in the global south distinctive compared to the countries of the Global North. The Indian air quality guideline is directly adapted from the air quality monitoring guidelines from US/Europe. We have evaluated the monitoring guideline and conducted a series of field visits to identify the gap area. We have observed several deviations from the present guidelines, such as; insignificant numbers of rural stations, absence of meteorological measurements in offline stations, and measurement of multiple pollutants over the same stations. We strongly recommend primarily focusing on PM2.5 measurement rather than measuring 10 pollutants together.

Our observations suggest that mixed land use and rapid urban growth often reduce the spatial representativeness of the monitoring sites. Due to the mixed land use, true residential, commercial, or industrial areas are not present in Indian cities. An overlap of these land-uses types is often observed. We are recommending modifying the current guideline and addressing this particular challenge. We have proposed a classification scheme at the micro level according to the source, land use and population for classifying existing sites and selecting locations of future areas. We also recommend documenting site metadata for present monitoring stations and using different proxy datasets (nighttime light, satellite-derived PM2.5) for selecting future monitoring sites.