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Air pollution is the largest environmental health risk factor in India. To understand the health burden associated with ambient exposure to PM 2.5 (fine particulate matter) in India, we developed a satellite based PM 2.5 retrieval. The paper also maps urban expansion using settlement data for 60+ cities in India (that are under the smart city mission) and quantifies the change in the pollution that can be attributed to urbanisation. We found that more than 50% of India’s population does not meet the Indian standard. The rising trend in PM 2.5 in India is regionally isolated and mostly governed by the increase during post-monsoon and winter season along with increase in urban expansion.
We further project PM 2.5 under climate change scenarios and observe that PM 2.5 exposure is projected to increase until 2050 under the RCP 4.5 scenario and until 2080 under the RCP 8.5 scenario. We project the burden attributable to ambient PM 2.5 exposure in India for future by combining RCP scenario with SSP scenarios. The epidemiological transition is unable to compensate fully the demographic transition. If India (and the world) can meet the RCP 4.5 scenario, 40,000 premature deaths can be avoided annually (relative to RCP 8.5 scenario) due to air pollution.
About the Speaker:
Dr Sagnik Dey received his PhD Degree from IIT Kanpur. After spending 3 years as a postdoctoral scientist at the University of Illinois, USA, he joined Centre for Atmospheric Science, IIT Delhi in 2010, where he is currently serving as Associate Professor. His research interest is understanding air pollution, climate and health nexus in a changing climate. He won INSA Young Scientist Medal in 2008, NASI-SCOPUS Young Scientist Award in 2012, Dr Sudhansu Kumar Banerji outstanding Young Faculty Fellowship for 2011-2013, Teaching Excellence Award in 2016 and Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Award in 2017-2018. He is an international collaborator of NASA’s Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols (MAIA) mission.
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