Air Quality Index (AQI) for Delhi, India: Trend Analysis & Implications for the Commonwealth Games 2010 & Beyond
Delhi, the capital city of India, is gearing up to host the Commonwealth Games in October 2010 (CWG 2010). With the Games around the corner, the debate on air quality in Delhi and athletes health during the Games is slowly taking center stage, very similar to the debates on air quality in Beijing before and during the Olympics Games 2008. In case of Beijing, some stringent regulations and policy measures were implemented, months in advance, to ensure clean air days before and during the Olympic Games. However, this remains a challenge for the Delhi authorities.
In India, there is no proposed methodology for estimating air quality index (AQI) - a common denominator to compare the observed pollutant concentrations across as a measure of the health impacts. Following the methodology presented in SIM-air working paper No.34, this paper presents an application for Delhi using the monitoring data, an analysis of the observed trends, and implications to the Commonwealth Games in October, 2010.
SIM Series No. 34 discusses Air Quality Index (AQI) and public awareness
Some examples of AQI
Download the Excel-based AQI Calculator for Delhi
Download SIM Working Paper Series No. 35
Between July 2006 and July 2010, the health standards are exceeded more often in Delhi than not - only on 37 percent of the days the standards were met, in the form of AQI. Most of often, the worst is observed during the winter months, starting in October and ending some time in February of the next year. The best air quality is often during the monsoon months, when most of the pollution is washed off in rain and the skies are cleaner and clearer.A major intervention that Delhi is counting on is the extension of the metro rail system, to shift the motorized transport trends to the metro rail. The expected level of shift is uncertain, which depends on a number of factors, but it will very beneficial as the impact of air pollution on the human health and the ecosystem is increasingly been linked to the growing transport sector.
Following a half day workshop on May 10th, 2010, by Center for Science and Environment, where representatives form the government and academia were present to discuss options to better air quality during the 2010 Commonwealth Games, here is a list of 7 proposed measures
- Ensure procurement of buses and re-organization of public transport systems
- Advance BRT corridors, and the cycle and pedestrian ways
- Advance work on the bypass so that the truck traffic does not enter the city
- Take urgent steps for imposing congestion tax for controlling truck traffic within the city and increased parking charges for private cars so that there is restriction on travel
- Take steps to restrict private vehicle movement between cities – use of public transport to be encouraged
- Advance steps to control pollution from thermal power and industries
- Restrict private transport during the Games and take other steps to control pollution as part of contingency planning
- Shut down part of the industries, depending on the meteorological and air quality forecasts (either daily and weekly)
- Strict restrictions on garbage burning during the weeks (and after), especially the open burning for heating purposes in the residential areas
- One way transport along the major corridors for better flow of the traffic
- Some corridors are already dedicated for the movement of the athletes, but similar provisions should be made for passenger travel, which otherwise would result in increase in the congestion levels
- Aggressive procurement of buses and incentives to promote the use of bus and metro rail systems
- Promote telecommuting where possible, especially along the satellite cities like NOIDA and Gurgaon, which experiences the largest rush hour traffic during the week days
- Promote wet sweeping of the all the major roads, at least once in two days to reduce the amount of dust loading and thus reduce the resuspension due to increasing vehicular movement
