Pandey, J S and Kumar, Rakesh and Devotta, S (2005) Health risks of NO2, SPM and SO2 in Delhi (India. Atmospheric Environment , 39. pp. 6868-6874.

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Abstract

There is increasingly growing evidence linking urban air pollution to acute and chronic illnesses amongst all age groups. Therefore, monitoring of ambient concentrations of various air pollutants as well as quantification of the dose inhaled becomes quite important, specially in view of the fact that in many countries, policy decisions for reducing pollutant concentrations are mainly taken on the basis of their health impacts. The dose when gets combined with the likely responses, indicates the ultimate health risk (HR). Thus, as an extension of our earlier studies, HR has been estimated for three pollutants, namely, suspended particulate matter (SPM), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and sulfur dioxide (SO2) for Delhi City in India. For estimation and analyses, three zones have been considered, namely, residential, industrial and commercial. The total population has been divided into three age classes (infants, children and adults) with different body weights and breathing rates. The exercise takes into account age-specific breathing rates, body weights for different age categories and occupancy factors for different zones. Results indicate that health risks due to air pollution in Delhi are highest for children. For all age categories, health risks due to SO2 (HR_SO2) are the lowest. Hence, HR_SO2 has been taken as the reference with respect to which HR values due to SPM and NO2 have been compared. Taking into account all the age categories and their occupancy in different zones, average HR values for NO2 and SPM turn out to be respectively 22.11 and 16.13 times more than that for SO2. The present study can be useful in generating public awareness as well as in averting and mitigating the health risks.

Item Type:	Article
Subjects:	Air Pollution
Divisions:	UNSPECIFIED
Depositing User:	Users 4 not found.
Date Deposited:	15 Feb 2012 09:52
Last Modified:	15 Feb 2012 09:52
URI:	http://neeri.csircentral.net/id/eprint/90

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