Air pollution mapping and quality assessment study at an Urban area Tirupati using GIS

Abstract

The study of particulate air pollution is interesting for a number of reasons; they involve radiation budget, chemical deposition budget, effects on human health, effects on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems (Bodhaine 1983; Nriagu and Davidson 1986; Fenger 1999; Riga-Karandinos and Saitanis 2005). Particulate air pollution is a complex mixture of small and large particles of varying size and chemical composition (Stanier et al. 2004). Health and environmental effects of particulate air pollution strongly depend on their size and chemical composition (Wichmann and Peters 2000; Cakmak et al. 2007; Kappos et al. 2004). Many processes like solar radiation, cloud-aerosol interaction and biosphere impacts are determined by size resolved chemical composition (Meszaros et al. 1997). The characteristics and distribution of particulate air pollution are highly variable, changing spatially, temporally and with altitude and source (Ulrich 2005). Particulate matter is introduced into the atmosphere through a variety of processes including sea-salt aerosol generation, structural weathering, biologically or physically mediated volatilization, volcanism, biomass burning, fossil fuel combustion, industrial activity and incineration (Nriagu 1989). Particulate air pollution presents a formidable challenge to theoretical as well as experimental chemists and physicists (Kvetoslav 2000) and they consist of both inorganic and organic components. The inorganic part of ambient aerosols consists of sulfates, ammonium, nitrates, chlorides, iodides, crustal elements, trace metals etc. (Murphy et al. 1998). The organic component of ambient particles in both polluted and remote areas is a complex mixture of hundreds of organic compounds (Reilly et al. 1998). Since rapid urbanization and increase in population in recent years, several researchers have focused on assessment of air pollution (Praveen Kumar et al. 2005; Chandra Mouli et al. 2006).