Air Pollution Emissions Inventory, Source Apportionment and Atmospheric Carrying Capacity Study of Kolkata in West Bengal

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Air Pollution Emission Inventory, Source Apportionment and Atmospheric Carrying Capacity Study of the Howrah City in West Bengal

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Number of Vehicles in Delhi = Sum of Number of Vehicles in Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai

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Humor in Pollution - Transforming Public Commune

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Journal Article - Urbanization and Environment: A Comparative Analysis of Delhi and Kolkata

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Journal Article - Air pollution walk as an impact education tool for air quality sensitization: a pilot from an Indian megacity

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Precipitation (rainfall) forecast for Kolkata, India (for the next 3 days)

Time series is the variation within the city airshed among the 1-km grid cells. Data is modelled using WRF meteorological model and GFS initiation fields.

For details visit City-level meteorology and air quality forecasts. Other parameters include wind speeds, wind directions, surface temperatures, ground-level temperature, and mixing heights. Updated everyday around 7PM IST.

Precipitation (rainfall) forecasts for the next 3 days - Kolkata, India

Time series is the variation within the city airshed among the 1-km grid cells. Data is modelled using WRF meteorological model and GFS initiation fields.

For details visit City-level meteorology and air quality forecasts. Other parameters include wind speeds, wind directions, surface temperatures, ground-level temperature, and mixing heights. Updated everyday around 7PM IST.

Resource - WAQI - Real Time Air Quality Index for Kolkata, India

Journal Article - A comprehensive high-resolution gridded emission inventory of anthropogenic sources of air pollutants in Indian megacity Kolkata

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Kolkata to Claim the Dirtiest City Title from Delhi

Calcutta is poised to claim the crown of most polluted Indian city from Delhi this winter. The central pollution control board's Air Quality Index (AQI) shows the city ahead of the capital in this winner-loses-all race, based on the severity of pollution in some locations. Independent reports generated by a pollution measuring Android app called Plume Air Report suggest that Calcutta's air quality is even worse than some of the world's more lung-unfriendly cities.

According to the Central Pollution Control Board, the city has been experiencing the worst spell of air pollution this year since December 23. The AQI, calculated after collating data sourced from various government agencies on different kinds of air pollutants, including particulate matter, shows that the average pollution count between December 23 and 27 was 363. A count above 300 is categorised as "very poor".

On December 25, when Calcutta's AQI at Rabindra Bharati was pegged at 414, the reading at ITO, Delhi, was 390. State pollution control board data from the Rabindra Bharati monitoring station shows that the average of Particulate Matter (PM) 10 between December 23 and 27, 2015, had been 234 micrograms. The PM10 average for the same period this year is 332 micrograms. Pollution increases in winter due to the phenomenon of "temperature inversion". The cold traps pollution close to the ground, particularly in the absence of wind, and maximises the effect on those exposed to it.

Read the full article @ Calcutta Telegraph

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This is modeled air quality for India in forecast mode. The reports for all the 640 Indian districts everyday @ India Air Quality.Info

Kolkata Ranked 4th Worst Polluted City

Coarse dust particles - a byproduct of construction activities - have made Kolkata the fourth most polluted ‘megacity’ in the world, a recent report published by the World Health Organization (WHO) claims. While the report has placed Delhi at the top of the list, Cairo and Dhaka occupy the second and third positions respectively. Kolkata comes fourth just ahead of Mumbai. Read more @ Hindustan Times and track pollution in your city with this real-time air quality map

According to the report the PM10 level in Kolkata during this pseriod was nearly seven times the limit prescribed by WHO. If one considers the Indian safety limits, which is less stringent, Kolkata’s PM10 pollution level is more than double. These particles can cause asthma attacks, aggravate bronchitis and other lung diseases, and reduce the body’s ability to fight infections, said doctors. The report is based on the presence of such particles in the air of the city between 2011 and 2015. This list was prepared solely on the basis of PM10 level, and other pollutants such as PM2.5, NOx, SOx, CO2 etc were not included. If all Indian cities are taken into account the Gwallior reported the highest pollution. (But it is not a megacity.)

While the city’s PM10 level soared to around 140 micrograms per cubic metre, the WHO’s safety limit for this coarse pollutants is not more than 20 micrograms per cubic metre. The Indian safety limit is 60 micrograms per cubic metre. Delhi which has been ranked as the most polluted megacity has PM10 level as high as 240 micrograms per cubic metre. Mumbai which ranks fifth has PM10 level around 120 micrograms per cubic metre. The WHO report also suggests that the PM10 level in Kolkata was just around 100 micrograms per cubic metre in 2009-2010. So what forced the level of dust particles to shoot up?

Chatterjee added that another source of PM10 in Kolkata is the westerly winds that come in from the west and north India during the winter. They bring the dust particles from neighbouring and far flung states including Delhi, UP, Bihar and Jharkhand, raising pollution levels during winter months. Though physicians and scientists claimed that it is the PM2.5 – the finer particulate matter measuring less than 2.5 micros – which are more deadly, they also pointed out PM10 is also bad enough to cause damage and trigger a variety of pulmonary diseases as they can can penetrate deep into the lungs.

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This is modeled air quality for India in forecast mode. The reports for all the 640 Indian districts everyday @ India Air Quality.Info

See what is happening at the regional scale, which is conducted as part of the all India air pollution forecasting program, hosted @ http://www.indiaairquality.info. The animation below is from a WRF-CAMx simulation conducted @ 0.25x0.25 degree resolution (approximately, 25km x 25km).

Unique - A Horse Carriage with Air Conditioner in Kolkata

In a city where tram employees turned a ramshackle Raj-era relic into a cool ride, here's another doit-yourself innovation that's uber-cool — an air conditioned horse carriage.

The DIY guy is Sujit Sil, who owns six horse carriages and let his imagination gallop wild one particularly sultry and sweaty day . "I am always game for doing something unique. I wanted to ramp up the decor of my coaches with intricate wooden work, like the ones you see in Varanasi and Lucknow. During my research I came across coaches in England and Switzerland," he told TOI. The Queen has one. Why shouldn't the former Raj capital have one, too? 

Sil scoured the city and found a craftsman to transform his coach, a Victorian-legacy , into a "royal landau carrier", fitted with a 0.75-tonne air conditioner. Turning an open carriage into an insulated, see-through coach wasn't easy, of course. Sil charges Rs 10,000-15,000 a night depending on the distance. He has to factor in the cost of a diesel generator and maintenance of the landau and AC.

Read the full article @ the Times of India