Air quality and its effect on health: A geographical perspective of Lucknow city

Abstract

Erudite groups of people, scientists, planners, and policy-makers of different countries have come to realise that quality of environment is not necessarily a simple function of nature as in primitive earth. Today nature's self-regulatory functions are inoperative. All the developed and developing countries are deeply concerned to make balance between their environmental anxiety and their economic development. Dreadful environmental conditions are affecting the biological segment of the ecosystem of these areas. Human being, 'one of the most precious component in biosphere', have regular predicament situation with accretion of sullied air, water, and soil degradation. Though water and land pollution is extremely dangerous, air pollution has its own peculiarities, due to its trans-boundary dispersion of pollutants over the entire world. The effect of air pollution on health is very complex as there are many different sources and their individual effect varying from one to other. It is not only the ambient air quality in the cities but also the indoor air quality in the rural and urban areas that are causing concern. The study is confined with the health impact of deteriorating air quality in Lucknow city. The aim of the present study is also to determine the consequences of ambient air quality on health of the people in the study area.