Study of Temporal Variation in Ambient Air Quality during Diwali Festival in Delhi – A Case Study

Abstract

Fireworks are one of the most unusual sources of pollution potassium nitrate, carbon and sulphur apart from an array of chemicals such as strontium, barium, sodium, titanium, zirconium, magnesium alloys, copper and aluminum powder to create the colorful effects .The boundless in atmosphere containing harmful chemicals such as use of fireworks was found to be related to short-term variation in air quality of Delhi (28.6139°N, 77.2090°E). These variation episodes are responsible for high concentrations of pollutants (especially metals, organic compound and gases). In this paper the ambient concentrations of air pollutants [sulphur dioxide (SO2), oxides of nitrogen (NO2), Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM) and carbon monoxide (CO)] during Diwali have been compared to the data of a typical day in Delhi , November 2015. The data reveals that there is a shift in meteorological parameters which resulted in easy dispersion of air pollutants due to which the concentration of pollutants was observed to be increased ∼23-fold at few sites. The trend also shows that pollutants concentration increased just before Diwali and reached to a maximum concentration on the day of the festival. These results also indicate that fireworks during the Diwali festival affected the ambient air quality adversely due to emission, dispersion and accumulation of air pollutants.