Capital in grey scale: In a matter of hours, PM10 rises by up to 44 times
New Delhi: At 5pm on Wednesday, the hourly PM10 concentration in southwest Delhi's Najafgarh was 68 micrograms per cubic metre. It had spiralled immensely to 2,969 micrograms per cubic metre by 8am on Thursday.
The reason why the coarse pollutants jumped 44 times within a few hours was the wind that brought dust from west Rajasthan, according to the
Delhi Pollution Control Committee
.
In fact after the dust intrusion, the hourly PM10 concentration across the city jumped in no time. Though DPCC's hourly PM10 data was unavailable for Wednesday night, the data showed that the concentration was below 200 micrograms per cubic metre. This crossed 1,200 micrograms per cubic metre early on Thursday, with some monitoring stations recording an hourly PM10 level of 2,000 micrograms per cubic metre.
The hourly PM10 touched 2,163 micrograms per cubic metre at Sri Aurobindo Marg in south Delhi at 8am on Thursday compared with 133 at 4pm on Wednesday. In northwest Delhi's Ashok Vihar, the hourly PM10 concentration soared from 204 micrograms per cubic metre at 3pm on Wednesday to 2,396 at 9 on Thursday morning.
The 24-hour average national ambient air quality standard for PM10 is 100 micrograms per cubic metre and that of the World Health Organization is 45 micrograms per cubic metre.
Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director, Research and Advocacy, Centre for Science and Environment, said, "During summer months, Delhi experiences wind-blown dust events that impact the PM10 levels. In an urban environment, coarse particles of dust mix with combustion material and turn toxic."
She added that controlling dust required massive urban redevelopment with adequate green infrastructure, including urban forests and green areas, and green walling like Aravali forest and massive plantations on the periphery to act as wind and dust barriers.
Cities in the Indo-Gangetic plain face dangerously high PM10 levels due to dust storms, dry conditions and strong winds lifting dust in summer, especially when winds blew in from the west or southwest, pointed out Sunil Dahiya, founder and lead analyst, EnviroCatalysts. "To combat this, we need large-scale roadside plantations, grass cover on exposed areas and scientific vacuum cleaning of roads. However, tackling other pollution sources — like vehicles, industries and waste burning — is equally critical because they emit far more hazardous PM2.5 particles, which are more respirable than the coarse PM10 dust," said Dahiya.
Dahiya also noted that the recent spike in PM2.5 and PM10 signified a growing problem arising from combustion-related pollution in Delhi. "This could stem from waste burning at landfills, upwind crop stubble burning or forest fires. These add to the city's perennial pollution burden," he said.
The overall AQI in the city also saw a sharp deterioration. The 24-hour average AQI was 292 at the higher end of the 'poor' category on Thursday when just a day earlier, it was 135 in the 'moderate' range, according to the Central Pollution Control Board bulletin released at 4pm. A higher AQI than this, 294, was last recorded on Feb 16.
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