Monitoring of air pollution and assessment of its risk on traffic policemen

Abstract

The ambient air quality was monitored at five selected sites in proper Rohtak City. The parameters i.e. sulphur dioxide (SO2 ), nitrogen dioxide (NO2 ) and suspended particulate matter (SPM) were monitored for eight hours from 9 am to 5 pm once in a week at each of the five sites. Two sites out of five were found to have low pollution, while the other three sites had high level of pollutants, which exceeded the safety limits as per National Ambient Air Quality Standards. The levels of SO2 , NO2 and SPM were lowest at polluted site 2 (University Gate NO. 2) in the City, which ranged between 4.12 µg/m 3 and 40.37 µg/m 3 , 25.37 µg/m 3 and 73.80 µg/m 3 , 138.0 µg/m 3 and 530.7 µg/m 3 of the air respectively. Highest levels of SO2, NO2 and SPM were observed at site 5 ( Hisar Road ) which ranged between 5.30 µg/m 3 and 120.0 µg/m 3 , 68.01 µg/m 3 and 197.84 µg/m3, 730.5 µg/m 3 and 3319.0 µg/m 3 respectively. The concentrations of lead and cadmium were very much below the safety limits at all the sampling sites Health surveillance studies of the traffic policemen revealed that there is a significant excess risk of respiratory problems for traffic policemen as they are exposed to heavy loads of vehicular pollution.