Abstract
Goa is one of the most famous international tourist destinations of the world. Export of Iron ore extracted from the midland of Goa is a major economic activity. However, there is a serious concern of air pollution due to iron ore mining activities. In order to assess the impact of mining activities on the environmental regime, the air quality depreciation index was adopted for this study due to its realistic and meaningful presentation of deterioration in ambient air quality. The index had been applied to the ambient air quality monitoring results of thirty four locations in the iron ore mining region of Goa. To envisage upon the deterioration in air quality due to various activities, eight stations were selected around mines, twelve in the buffer zone (within 4 Km radius of the core mining activities) and fourteen along the ore transportation routes for monitoring of SPM, PM10, SO2 and NOX. The deterioration of air quality in the iron ore mining region of Goa is clearly apparent as the depreciation in air quality was found < -1 from the most desired value of 0 at all the stations. In general, the air quality was found most depreciated along the ore transportation routes, which is also evidenced by a considerable load of particulate matters observed. This infers that ore transportation is the most devastating activity in the iron ore mining region of Goa and accordingly mitigation plan should be adopted.
Highlights
Iron ore mining is a major economic activity of Goa and it has evolved the economy of the State
Along the ore transportation routes the air quality is found most depreciated followed by mines
Air quality depreciation index was adopted for this study to assess the ambient air quality of the iron ore mining region of Goa
Summary
The large data often do not convey the air quality status to the scientific community, policy makers and the general public in a simple and straightforward manner This problem can be addressed by determining the Air Quality Index (AQI) of a given area using environmental synthetic indices to summarize complex situations in a single ûgure, allowing for comparisons in time and in space[9]. Considering the disadvantages of the existing methods of ambient air quality assessment, the present paper attempts to follow an air quality depreciation index that measures deterioration in air quality (with due weightage to the potential of pollutants to affect bio-physical, health and aesthetic attributes) on an ‘absolute’ environmental quality scale independent of NAAQS6. This approach is conceptually similar to the environmental evaluation system developed by Dee et al, for assessing environmental impacts related to water resources[7] Sharma et al, Singh and Roy et al, have used this concept for determining the air quality status of Raniganj Coalûelds (India), coal mining areas of Korba Industrial et al belt of Chhattisgarh, (India) and a case study from the Coal-fields of eastern India, respectively[14,6,13]
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