Crop Residue Burning: A Threat to South Asian Air Quality
16 Sep 2014-Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union (John Wiley & Sons, Ltd)-Vol. 95, Iss: 37, pp 333-334
TL;DR: For more than two decades, crop residues in Punjab, a region spanning northwestern India and eastern Pakistan, have been burned during October and November to ready fields for the next year's planting as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: For more than 2 decades, crop residues in Punjab, a region spanning northwestern India and eastern Pakistan, have been burned during October and November to ready fields for the next year's planting. This practice poses a serious threat to air quality in South Asia.
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TL;DR: In this paper, the influence of a single pollution source, outdoor biomass burning, on particulate matter (PM) concentrations, surface visibility, and aerosol optical depth (AOD) from 2007 to 2013 in three of the most populous Indian cities was examined.
160 citations
TL;DR: Concentrated weighted trajectory (CWT) analysis reveals that the potential sources for the carbonaceous aerosols and pollutants are local emissions within the urban environment and transported smoke from agricultural burning in northwest India during post-monsoon.
148 citations
Cites background from "Crop Residue Burning: A Threat to S..."
...…the annual mean, mostly due to the influence of long-range transport of soot aerosols from wheat crop-residue burning (Kumar et al., 2011) along with fires in Himalayan foothills (Vadrevu et al., 2012) in pre-monsoon and rise crop-residue burning during post-monsoon (Singh and Kaskaoutis, 2014)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, a combination of observed and modeled variables, including surface measurements of PM2.5, were used to quantify the influence of agricultural fire emissions on surface air pollution in Delhi.
Abstract: Since at least the 1980s, many farmers in northwest India have switched to mechanized combine harvesting to boost efficiency. This harvesting technique leaves abundant crop residue on the fields, which farmers typically burn to prepare their fields for subsequent planting. A key question is to what extent the large quantity of smoke emitted by these fires contributes to the already severe pollution in Delhi and across other parts of the heavily populated Indo-Gangetic Plain located downwind of the fires. Using a combination of observed and modeled variables, including surface measurements of PM2.5, we quantify the magnitude of the influence of agricultural fire emissions on surface air pollution in Delhi. With surface measurements, we first derive the signal of regional PM2.5 enhancements (i.e. the pollution above an anthropogenic baseline) during each post-monsoon burning season for 2012–2016. We next use the Stochastic Time-Inverted Lagrangian Transport model (STILT) to simulate surface PM2.5 using five fire emission inventories. We reproduce up to 25% of the weekly variability in total observed PM2.5 using STILT. Depending on year and emission inventory, our method attributes 7.0%–78% of the maximum observed PM2.5 enhancements in Delhi to fires. The large range in these attribution estimates points to the uncertainties in fire emission parameterizations, especially in regions where thick smoke may interfere with hotspots of fire radiative power. Although our model can generally reproduce the largest PM2.5 enhancements in Delhi air quality for 1–3 consecutive days each fire season, it fails to capture many smaller daily enhancements, which we attribute to the challenge of detecting small fires in the satellite retrieval. By quantifying the influence of upwind agricultural fire emissions on Delhi air pollution, our work underscores the potential health benefits of changes in farming practices to reduce fires.
143 citations
01 Mar 2019
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors pointed out that South Asian megacities are strong sources of regional air pollution and that Delhi is a key hotspot of health and climate-impacting black carbon emissions, affecting environmental sustainability in de...
Abstract: South Asian megacities are strong sources of regional air pollution. Delhi is a key hotspot of health-and climate-impacting black carbon (BC) emissions, affecting environmental sustainability in de ...
134 citations
TL;DR: An efficient crop residue management system is critically needed towards eliminating open field burning to mitigate episodic hazardous air quality over northern India and the effectiveness of a robust satellite-based relationship between vegetation index and post-harvest fires, a precursor of extreme air pollution events, has been demonstrated.
Abstract: Northwestern India is known as the “breadbasket” of the country producing two-thirds of food grains, with wheat and rice as the principal crops grown under the crop rotation system. Agricultural data from India indicates a 25% increase in the post-monsoon rice crop production in Punjab during 2002–2016. NASA’s A-train satellite sensors detect a consistent increase in the vegetation index (net 21%) and post-harvest agricultural fire activity (net ~60%) leading to nearly 43% increase in aerosol loading over the populous Indo-Gangetic Plain in northern India. The ground-level particulate matter (PM2.5) downwind over New Delhi shows a concurrent uptrend of net 60%. The effectiveness of a robust satellite-based relationship between vegetation index—a proxy for crop amounts, and post-harvest fires—a precursor of extreme air pollution events, has been further demonstrated in predicting the seasonal agricultural burning. An efficient crop residue management system is critically needed towards eliminating open field burning to mitigate episodic hazardous air quality over northern India.
131 citations