NEW DELHI: Wednesday saw a sharp deterioration in Delhi’s air quality, with the national capital’s average AQI climbing to 377, its worst reading in nearly 10 months, as pollution levels edged closer to the ‘severe’ category.
With 22 monitoring stations recording severe air quality and neighbouring NCR cities also witnessing high pollution levels, forecasts have indicated a further decline in air quality over the next few days.
The AQI at 377 was the highest since January 20, when the index had settled at 378, making it the worst reading in 288 days.
IIT Delhi recorded the highest AQI at 458, followed by Jahangirpuri and Punjabi Bagh at 448 each, while Mundka recorded an AQI of 439. Of the 59 monitoring stations, 22 recorded ‘severe’ air quality, 32 were in the ‘very poor’ category and five recorded ‘poor’ air quality.
According to the CPCB, an AQI between zero and 50 is classified as ‘good’, 51 and 100 as ‘satisfactory’, 101 and 200 as ‘moderate’, 201 and 300 as ‘poor’, 301 and 400 as ‘very poor’, and 401 and 500 as ‘severe’.
According to the Air Quality Early Warning System, Delhi’s air quality is likely to remain in the very poor category on Thursday and it is likely to deteriorate further to the severe category from November 6 to 7.
PM10 emerged as the dominant pollutant in Delhi on Wednesday, marking a shift from the previous three days when PM2.5 was the dominant pollutant. PM10 is generally associated with coarse particulate matter, including road dust and construction dust.
The maximum temperature at Safdarjung, Delhi’s base weather station, settled at 29.8 degrees Celsius, 0.7 degrees below the season’s normal. Palam recorded a maximum temperature of 27.2 degrees Celsius, 3.6 degrees below normal, while Lodhi Road recorded 29.6 degrees Celsius, 0.4 degrees below normal.
According to the Decision Support System (DSS), transport emissions contributed 15.5 per cent to Delhi’s pollution on Wednesday, while stubble burning accounted for 20.2 per cent.
Delhi’s other contributing sectors included industries (2.9 per cent), waste burning (1.3 per cent), construction (2.2 per cent), road dust (1.1 per cent), residential sources (3.8 per cent) and other sectors (1 percent).
Among the NCR districts, Ghaziabad contributed 7 per cent, Rohtak 3.8 per cent, Gurugram 2.7 per cent, Sonipat 2.2 per cent, Jind 1.8 per cent and Bhiwani 1.3 per cent. Other sources accounted for 28.5 per cent of the pollution.
Meanwhile, satellites detected 467 farm fires across the six study states on November 4, including 151 in Punjab, 10 in Haryana, 33 in Uttar Pradesh, 111 in Rajasthan, five in Uttarakhand and 157 in Madhya Pradesh. No farm fires were detected in Delhi.
A total of 4,800 residue-burning events have been detected across the seven states or UTs, including Delhi, between September 15 and November 4, according to the Consortium for Research on Agroecosystem Monitoring and Modeling from Space (CREAMS) Laboratory of the ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute.
Average for the past five days:
November 4 - 377
November 3 - 350
November 2 - 324
November 1 - 261
October 31 - 117
October 30 - 60
October 29 - 222
Stations with the worst AQI today:
Alipur- 431
Bawana - 415
DTU- 435
IIT Delhi- 451
Mundka- 434
NCR data:
Ghaziabad - 257 (Poor)
Noida - 330 (Very Poor)
Greater Noida - 309 (Very Poor)
Gurugram - 322 (Very Poor)
According to satellite data from the ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, 467 farm-fire incidents were detected across six states on Wednesday:
Punjab - 151
Haryana - 10
Uttar Pradesh - 33
Rajasthan - 111
Uttarakhand - 5
Madhya Pradesh - 157
Delhi - 0