An Analysis of Health & Carbon Benefits Using Integrated Air Pollution for Pune, India

This study under the SIM-air program was initiated with support from the Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation (New Delhi, India) to better understand the sources of air pollution in the Pune city and to support an integrated dialogue between local pollution management and climate policy in a co-benefits framework.

The main objectives of this study were (a) to establish a baseline emissions inventory for the criteria pollutants PM, SO2, and NOx, and the greenhouse gas (CO2) from the known sources of air pollution (b) to analyze pollution due to these emissions and associated health impacts, based on dispersion modeling for the selected city domain (c) to analyze select interventions (from emissions and pollution perspective) for health benefits and GHG emission reductions and (d) to identify information gaps while building the emission inventories, which could further our understanding of air pollution sources in the city. While the definition of co-benefits framework varies, in this study, we used the local air pollution (particulate pollution) and related health impacts as the primary indicator, followed by GHG emission reductions.

Annual emissions for the base year 2010 are estimated at ~36,600 tons of PM10, ~16,600 tons of PM2.5, ~3,600 tons of SO2, ~127,500 of NOx, ~438,000 tons of CO, and ~13.4 million tons of CO2. The dispersion modeling results for PM10 annual average concentrations, overlaid on the gridded population at the same resolution are utilized for calculating the health impacts, estimated at ~3,600 premature deaths in 2010. Six “what-if” interventions were modeled for 2020 with expected benefit of 39% reduction in premature mortality and mitigation of ~3.0 million tons of CO2/yr.

Download SIM Working Paper Series No. 37

Press coverage on this study

Times of India, December 29th, 2011
Indian Express, December 28th, 2011

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