AQI – Air Quality Index.pptx

Air Quality Index

1. AQI – Air Quality Index Project by Geet Parhar , Grade 4, Atlantic

2. What is AQI AQI stands for Air Quality Index. This is a method of describing how good or bad the air is and how pollution will affect our health within a short time period. The main purpose of AQI is to inform people about how the air quality will affect their health. This is very important since air is the easiest way that pollution spreads

3. Who makes AQI AQI was created by the EPA – Environmental Protection Agency - an agency in the USA that monitors various aspects of the environment. Although the EPA publishes its values for Air Quality which are for America, various countries have slightly different ways of reporting the Air Quality and how it affects the health of humans.

4. How is AQI calculated Various countries calculate AQI differently, but in India, the AQI project was launched in 2014 under the Swachh Bharat campaign after a study by IIT Kanpur. The Indian values are as shown on the next page. As we can see, the most important components are PM 2.5, PM 10, NO2 (Nitrogen Dioxide), SO2 ( Sulphur dioxide), O3 (Ozone), CO (Carbon Monoxide), NH3 (Ammonia) and Pb (Lead)

5. AQI components

6. Sources of Pollutants SO2, NO2, CO are the direct result of combustion – sometimes complete, sometimes incomplete. The main cause of this combustion is Automobile exhausts and crop burning.

7. Crop burning Crop burning happens because around October-November, the Kharif crops are harvested – mainly Rice, Maize, Sugarcane. Since we live in the NCR, we are surrounded by agricultural land and after harvesting, the easiest (cheapest) way for the farmers is to simply burn the standing crops to prepare the fields for the next Rabi season (mainly wheat)

8. Automobile Exhausts Automobile Exhausts – One of the major pollutants of the atmosphere is automobile exhausts. As per government rules, all vehicles must have their exhausts tested and then have a Pollution Under Control certificate, however very frequently we see trucks and other vehicles emitting a lot of black smoke. This is what we can see, what we cannot see….could be much worse.

9. Impact on human health

10. What can we do about it ? The two main reasons both need to be tackled seperately . For the crops, the government needs to ensure that this is not done. For automobile exhausts, we must avoid using vehicles as much as we can, we can use the metro, electric cars and start carpooling.