Air Quality Monitoring

Monitoring Stations for the Delhi CWG 2010

There are four organizations which will be monitoring air quality during the Commonwealth Games. These are Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC), National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) and Indian Institute of Tropical Metrology (IITM). CPCB and NEERI monitors air quality under the National Air Monitoring Program (NAMP), and not specifically for Delhi CWG 2010.

Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has been monitoring the ambient air quality of cities across India including Delhi for more than twenty years since 1987 under the NAMP. They regularly monitor four air pollutants: Sulfur dioxide (SO2), Nitrogen oxide (NO2) and particulate matter as suspended particulate matter (SPM) and respirable particulate matter (RSPM; PM10). RSPM monitoring was introduced in year 2000. The monitoring of pollutants is carried out for 24 hours (4-hourly sampling for gaseous pollutants and 8-hourly sampling for particulate matter) with a frequency of twice a week, to have 104 observations in a year. At present, CPCB has seven manual stations in Delhi under NAMP. In addition to the manual stations CPCB also operate four continuous ambient air quality monitoring stations (since 2006). CPCB also has one meteorological station (Sodar system) which measure parameters such as wind speed and direction, relative humidity and temperature. The data from this station is available every 8 minutes.

Other than the existing monitoring network, CPCB proposes to install three (3) additional continuous monitoring stations for the Commonwealth Games period and beyond. A Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (DOAS) is also proposed to be installed at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium by CPCB. This open path system is based an advanced alternative technology which measures the pollutant across a defined open area, instead of conventional stationary point. Thus, this station will represent the average air quality across the stadium at any given time.

Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC).

DPCC is in the final stages of establishing six continuous ambient air quality monitoring stations before the CWG 2010. Four of these would be the conventional continuous ambient air quality monitoring stations and two would be open path based continuous systems. All specified air quality parameters will be monitored except meteorological parameters. DPCC will make monitoring data available on real-time basis on their website. The network consists of six monitoring stations in different land use areas. These stations are working on two separate principles. Two of them are based on DOAS (Differential Optic Absorbance Spectroscopy) principle for analysis of gaseous parameters while for particles they are adopting β-attenuation principal.

Manual Monitoring Stations are also at work:
Station 1. Kandriya Vidhyalya R.K.Puram Sector –II at midst of a South Delhi,
Station 2. S K Vidhyalya Punjabi Bagh
Station 3. NP Senior Secondary School Mandir Marg in Central
Station 4. Inter State bus terminal- Anand vihar Bus terminal.

Data on PM10, PM2.5 , Sulfur dioxide, Nitrogen dioxide, Nitrogen Oxide, Carbon monoxide, Ammonia, benzene, Toluene, P-Xylene, benzene(a)pyrene, Arsenic ,Nickel, Lead, formaldehyde and Mercury (Vapor Phase) can be found in their website.

Other Actions by DPCC include measures to lessen emissions from industry, power generation and construction activity. They coordinated with the CPCB and EPCA for issuing appropriate direction to neighboring states specially Haryana and U.P Pollution control Boards to control trans-boundary movement of pollutants. They also issued to authorities under Noise regulations to ensure effective ban on use of sound emitting fire crackers especially in marriage processions, social and religious functions and other sound emitting sources.

National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI).

NEERI is operating three manual air quality monitoring stations under NAMP. The parameters monitored are SO2, NO2, PM10, Ammonia (NH3) and Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S).

Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) Pune.

Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) - Pune will also be monitoring and forecasting air quality during the CWG. IITM is in the process of installing 10 continuous monitoring stations at the different venues of the CWG. These stations will monitor nine (9) parameters, i.e., NOx, CO, CO2, O3, PM10, PM2.5, benzene, toluene, xylene and black carbon.