Ammonia Pollution in Delhi

Trying to get away from airborne ammonia? Don’t linger in Lagos or Delhi. If you’re bent on avoiding ozone, you might want to add Beijing, Karachi, and Los Angeles to your list. These are some of the cities with the world’s worst air quality, according to a new analysis of four major gases associated with air pollution: ammonia, formic acid, methanol, and ozone. The findings could help scientists better understand how geography and other local conditions play a role in determining air quality.

“It is critical to better understand what is contributing to air pollution … to protect growing populations from negative public health impacts,” says Miriam Marlier, an environmental scientist at Columbia University not involved in the study. Poor air quality can lead to a host of health problems, including respiratory and cardiovascular disease. But measuring air quality is hard: Many cities—especially those in developing countries—lack the ground- and aircraft-based sensors and the trained personnel to repeatedly monitor conditions over large areas.

Read the full article @ Science Magazine

81 Taj Mahal's Can be Built Using the FlyAsh Dumped from Badarpur Power Plant

When operational, the 705 MW plant produces a mammoth 3,500 metric tonnes of flyash every month, reports from the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) indicate. This means about 117 metric tonnes of flyash, a key component of the hazardous PM 2.5 or fine particulate matter causing air pollution, is released from BTPS on a daily basis.

The plant is spread across 2,160 acres of land within the national capital out of which 1,680 acres is used only to dump flyash which is a by-product of thermal electricity generation. DPCC reports accessed by HT revealed that as of 2016, the pond near the plant had a staggering 25.7 million metric tonnes of flyash dumped at any given point of time. This is equivalent to having as many as 81 Taj Mahals made out of fly ash.

Murari Lal, a loco pilot with the Indian Railways who has been living near BTPS for 15 years, complained that clothes couldn’t be dried outside as a thin layer of grey dust covers all of it. “Not just that, most of us suffer bouts of coughing in the morning and black sputum comes out. I feel guilty for letting my children grow up in such an environment. Even relatives stopped visiting us. We just own one house and have no option but to live here,” he said.


Read the full article @ Hindustan Times

Infograph - WMO Cloud Indentification Guide

 

Source: WMO

Times Series - Ambient Air Quality in Delhi (Last 8 days)

The time series below presents ambient air quality in Delhi for the last eight days (updated every 30 minutes), as reported by multiple networks in NCR. The modeled forecasts are updated once a day at 7pm (India time). For more, see www.delhiairquality.info