Only 12% of India’s census cities have air quality monitoring stations

The Center for Science and Environment (CSE) has exposed a significant lack of air quality monitoring infrastructure in India through a comprehensive analysis.

Michael Mann, a professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, led the study, which reveals that only 12% of the 4,041 cities and towns surveyed in the country have adequate systems of air quality monitoring. Furthermore, the study highlights the dismal state of the country's air quality monitoring network, with only 200 cities monitoring the six key criteria pollutants.

Climate change-related extreme weather events

The analysis, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, highlights the critical need for robust air quality monitoring to effectively forecast and mitigate the impacts of climate change-related extreme weather events. Meeting the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) and the clean air goals of the National Clean Air Program (NCAP) is highly dependent on reliable air quality monitoring.

The study states that the air quality monitoring grid, which includes both manual and real-time monitoring, does not cover nearly 47% of the Indian population. Furthermore, an alarming 62% of the population is not included in the real-time monitoring network, thereby depriving them of daily air quality updates.

Identifying areas of noncompliance and evaluating the effectiveness of clean air actions are challenged by this lack of coverage. NCAP's compliance assessments under NCAP are also prevented from including more harmful pollutants such as PM2.5 and ozone due to limited monitoring and data availability.

CSE Executive Director of Research and Advocacy, Anumita Roychowdhury, emphasizes the urgent need for a more equitable distribution of monitors and the adoption of hybrid monitoring approaches.

Roychowdhury proposes the utilization of standardized and certified air sensor networks, coupled with satellite monitoring, to ensure comprehensive and cost-effective air pollution detection across the population. Implementing these measures, alongside proactive clean air initiatives, would safeguard susceptible areas from the deleterious impacts of air pollution.

Lack of data integrity

Avikal Somvanshi, Senior Program Manager at CSE's Urban Lab, highlights the current monitoring network's inherent challenges, including insufficient data generation, lack of data integrity, and inadequate quality control of monitoring. These limitations greatly impede the evaluation of air quality trends and hinder the assessment of compliance with clean air goals.

Avikal Somvanshi adds, "Inadequate data generation, lack of data completeness, and poor quality control of monitoring challenge the current monitoring network. This difficulty in establishing compliance with clean air targets makes it challenging to assess air quality trends."

She further added, "The current urban monitoring grid is highly concentrated in a few big cities and there are vast areas in other regions with no monitoring. This needs to be rationalised to cover a wider population and habitats to support implementation of clean air action plans, provide information to public about the daily risks and design emergency response and longer term action”.

883 stations operating in 379 cities

In order to evaluate the sufficiency of the air quality monitoring network and data, CSE's analysis took into account both the manual monitoring conducted as part of the National Air Quality Monitoring Program (NAMP) and the real-time monitoring carried out within the National Air Quality Monitoring System.

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) conducted the Continuous Monitoring of Ambient Air Quality (CAAQMS) by analyzing publicly available data until December 31, 2022. The study utilized spatial distribution data from the WorldPop research program to estimate population coverage.

The study revealed that the number of manual monitoring stations has doubled since 2010, with 883 stations operating in 379 cities and towns in 28 states and seven union territories.

However, the overall coverage of real-time monitoring stations remains significantly below the recommended guidelines set by the Indian Standard 5182 for measuring air pollution, despite a 20-fold increase since 2010. Currently, there are only 409 stations operating in 209 cities and towns across 27 states and four union territories.

This study highlights that India presently possesses only 1,187 PM10 monitors, 717 PM2.5 monitors, 1,161 SO2 monitors, 1,185 NO2 monitors, 406 CO monitors, and 396 surface ozone monitors. The requirements for effective air quality monitoring cannot be fulfilled with these numbers, especially when the significant rural population is taken into account.

47% of Indians lack air monitoring

One of the worrying findings is that nearly 47% of the Indian population lives outside the 50 kilometre coverage radius of the Combined Air Quality Monitoring Network (NAMP and CAAQMS). This means that around 655 million people do not benefit from regular air quality monitoring and reporting.

Only 4% of the population, approximately 50 million people, reside within the immediate coverage area of a 2 kilometer radius, while 15% live within a 2 to 10-kilometer radius and around 34% live within a radius of 10 to 50 kilometers.

In terms of real-time air quality monitoring, around 62% of the population, equivalent to 860 million people, lives outside the 50-kilometre coverage radius of the CAAQMS network. This implies that they do not receive daily health alerts based on air quality indices.

Only 2% of the population resides within the immediate coverage area of a 2-kilometre radius, 11% within a 2 to 10-kilometre radius, and approximately 25% within a 10 to 50 kilometre radius.

Additionally, less than 200 cities in India monitor all six of the criteria pollutants required by the NAAQS, including PM10, PM2.5, NO2, SO2, CO, and ozone. While PM10, NO2 and SO2 monitoring is relatively widespread, PM2.5 monitoring remains limited and ozone monitoring is extremely poor. Monitoring of other contaminants such as ammonia and lead is also lacking.

Need for robust air quality monitoring network in India

The study underlines the urgency of strengthening the air quality monitoring network in India and expanding its coverage to ensure comprehensive data collection. Accurate and extensive monitoring is crucial to implement effective clean air actions, providing timely information to the public about the risks they face, and designing emergency response strategies to combat air pollution.

The researchers emphasize the need for a more equitable distribution of monitoring stations, improvement in data generation and quality control, and the adoption of hybrid monitoring approaches that use advanced technologies such as certified air sensor networks and satellite-based monitoring.

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