Goal
Emissions affect India’s air and the health of its population. A series of papers evaluates the regional distribution of these emissions and associated health impacts of poor air quality.
Objectives
Former Ph.D. student Alex Karambelas led work using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Community Multi-Scale Air Quality (CMAQ) model to study where nitrogen dioxide (NO2) emissions are distributed over India. To examine model’s biases across urban and rural regions, we compared the CMAQ results with both tropospheric air columns captured by the satellite-based Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) and surface monitor observations from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).
To estimate how air pollution affects premature mortality in northern India, we simulated concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone (O3) in the CMAQ model, drawing from 2010 data on biogenic, biomass burning, and anthropogenic emissions. Formulas established by the World Health Organization were used to calculate how exposure to each of these pollutants increases people’s risk of premature death from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), ischemic heart disease (IHD), lung cancer, and stroke.
Outcomes
We found that for India, CMAQ may overestimate urban emissions in densely populated regions and underestimate rural emissions. Satellites can help evaluate emissions and model results where surface observations are lacking, such as rural India, and support improved emissions inventory development.
In northern India, we estimate 463,200 adults die prematurely each year from PM2.5 and that 37,800 adults die prematurely each year from O3. This translates to 8.1% of annual deaths using 2010 estimates. We expect that the majority of premature deaths resulting from PM2.5 and O3 are in rural (383,600) as opposed to urban (117,200) regions, where we define urban as cities and towns with populations of at least 100,000 people.
Funding Partners:
NASA
Timeline:
2016 – 2018
Tools:
Community Multiscale Air Quality Modeling System (CMAQ)
Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model
Publications
Constraining the uncertainty in emissions over India with a regional air quality model evaluation
Urban versus rural health impacts attributable to PM2.5 and O3 in northern India
Core Team Members:
Tracey Holloway, Alexandra Karambelas
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A. Karambelas, T. Holloway, G. Kiesewetter, and C. Heyes, “Constraining the uncertainty in emissions over India with a regional air quality model evaluation,” Atmospheric Environment, vol. 174, pp. 194–203, Feb. 2018, doi: 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2017.11.052.
A. Karambelas et al., “Urban versus rural health impacts attributable to PM 2.5 and O 3 in northern India,” Environ. Res. Lett., vol. 13, no. 6, p. 064010, May 2018, doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/aac24d.