19-Oct-2021: Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh launches Air Quality Early Warning System to coincide with Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsava

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; Minister of State (Independent Charge) Earth Sciences; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh has launched Air Quality Early Warning System (AQEWS) on the occasion of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav week organised by the Ministry of Earth Sciences.

Dr Jitendra Singh said that Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), an autonomous Institute of Ministry of earth Sciences has developed a new Decision Support System (DSS) and extended the ability of the existing air quality early warning system (AQEWS) to have decision-making capability for air quality management in Delhi - NCR region.

The need was stated by Commission for Air Quality Management in the National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas (CAQM, which was recently formed by the Union Minister for MoEFCC with the approval of both the houses of parliament) during the meeting held in January 2021 and requested MoES institutions (IITM and IMD) for the same. Recently, the commission has reviewed the progress made by IITM and has in principle approved the current version of DSS for air quality management in the Delhi-NCR region. IITM, Pune has also developed a new website for DSS and recently, the entire system has been made-operational.

DSS is a significant contribution to Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsava on behalf of MOES and IITM and suggestions are invited on this issue.

Following is the link to the website   https://ews.tropmet.res.in/dss/ (At present the website is viewed best in Desktop and soon it will be made compatible with mobiles On Android and iPad (IOS) .

The website is designed to deliver quantitative information about:

1. the contribution of emissions from Delhi and the surrounding 19 districts to the air quality in Delhi,
2. the contribution of emissions from 8 different sectors in Delhi their contribution,
3. the contribution from biomass-burning activities in the neighbouring states to the degradation of air quality in Delhi,
4. the possible quantitative effects of interventions at the on the forecast air-quality event in Delhi. All this information would assist in managing the air quality in a timely manner. 

The website also has a feature whereby the users can create their own emission reduction scenarios (from 20 different districts including Delhi) so as to examine the possible projected improvement in air quality in Delhi for the next five days. This information would explicitly highlight the most important emission sources responsible for the degradation of air quality in Delhi and suggest possible solutions to ameliorate the same and could be used by policymakers. With a plethora of quantitative data, the AQEWS integrated with DSS could become user friendly tool for air-quality management in and around Delhi.

15-Oct-2018: Air Quality Early Warning System for Delhi launched.

Air Quality Early Warning System for Delhi was launched in Delhi by the Union Minister for Earth Sciences and Environment, Dr. Harsh Vardhan. The System is designed to predict extreme air pollution events and give alerts to take necessary steps as per Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) of the Government of India. The air pollution system has been developed jointly by the scientists at Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, India Meteorological Department and National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF).

The early warning system will help in proactively forewarning, 3-4 days in advance, any large scale air pollution events which may occur over the Delhi region. Outlining a series of efforts that the central government has taken the Union Minister said that the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has constituted a 41 member team which will continuously monitor the air pollution levels in Delhi and NCR region and will report to the board. Badarpur thermal power plant is being closed today, western peripheral expressway is likely to become operational in the first week of November, the Central govt. has released nearly 600 crores to concerned states for in-situ management of crop-residue and a slew of mitigation measures  have been taken by the government.

A new website developed for archiving all the observational and prediction products was also launched at the event. The website will be accessed by the officials of Environmental Pollution Authority (EPA) and the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) for taking necessary steps depending upon the requirements. Ministry of Earth Sciences will be making further attempts to assimilate more data of other pollutants and also to improve accuracy of predictions with the technical support from the NCAR, USA and Finnish Meteorological Institute.

The air pollution system has been developed jointly by the scientists at Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, India Meteorological Department and National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF). The warning system consists of a) real time observations of air quality over Delhi region and details about natural aerosols like dust (from dust storms) and particulate matter using different satellite data sets b) Predictions of air pollutants from two different air quality prediction systems based on state-of-the-art atmospheric chemistry transport models and c) Warning Messages and Alerts and Bulletins.

The prediction systems were developed by scientists of MoES institutions with the technical support from the National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR),USA and the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI). The prediction part of the system consists of two modelling framework, one is based on NCAR atmospheric chemistry transport model and the second one is based on Finnish Meteorological Institute model. The modelling framework typically consists of a high resolution weather prediction model with an atmospheric chemistry transport model.  Both the models have data assimilation facility, which can assimilate data from satellites on dust aerosols, particulate matter from stubble burning and other air pollutants like SO2 and NO2.  The models will take into account the background aerosols and pollutants, long range transport of dust from dust storms and particulate matter from stubble burning. The predictions are now available up to 72 hours lead time.

Union Minister also released a mega emission inventory of Delhi which was made by scientists at IITM Pune who carried out a mega emission inventory campaign involving around 140students mapping all possible local sources of air pollution with around 37,500 hours of work. The final product with 400 m x 400m high-resolution emission inventory of Delhi and fringe area of all eight important air pollutants (like PM2.5, PM10, NOx, CO, SO2, BC,  OC and VOCs) was released. Ground level activity data about emissions from as many as 23 different sources of pollution were also collected. The emission inventory suggests that there is a substantial increase of emissions from transport and industrial sector, while the contributions from residences have shown a substantial decline.