The rapid urbanization in Delhi has resulted in a tremendous increase in the number of motor vehicles with the increase in population and urban mobilization. The vehicular traffic is now recognized as one of the main sources of air pollution in Delhi and has noticeable impact on air quality. The emission of criteria pollutants namely Carbon Monoxide (CO), Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) and Particulate Matter (PM) due to vehicles is estimated through the International Vehicle Emission (IVE) model, which includes the different driving modes of vehicles and meteorological parameters. The estimated emissions of Carbon Monoxide (CO), Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) and Particulate Matter (PM) due to different types of vehicles in the year 2008–09 are found to be 509, 194 and 15 tons/day respectively. The diurnal variation of emissions of air pollutants shows two peaks, which are fortunately matching with the morning and evening office hours. The emissions of CO and NOx due to personal cars (PCs) are found to be about 34% and 50% respectively, and the emission of CO due to 2 W (2- Wheeler) is about 61%. Similarly, the Heavy Commercial Vehicles (HCVs) are contributing PM about 92%. The analysis of fuel-wise emission of pollutants reveals that CO is mainly contributed by petrol, and NOx and PM are contributed by diesel. It is also noticeable that CO, NOx and PM emissions at ITO, one of the busiest traffic intersections of Delhi, are approximately 15, 6 and 0.5 tons/day respectively, which are found to be the maximum followed by Kashmiri Gate (ISBT), Nizamuddin etc. The present vehicular emissions inventory has been compared quantitatively with previous studies of Delhi. The present vehicular emission inventory has also validated using US environmental protection agency’s (USEPA’s) AERMOD model with observed concentration at different locations in Delhi. However, the present study shows that the air quality of Delhi has been degraded due to high level emissions of criteria pollutants.
Air pollution forecasting is the most important environmental issue in urban areas as it is useful to assess the effects of air pollutants on human health. It has been observed that the air pollution has been increased above the standard level in the urbanized area of Delhi and will be a major problem in the next few years. Therefore, the main objective of the present study is to develop the model that can forecast daily concentrations of air pollutions in one-day advance. In the present study, the artificial intelligence based Neuro-Fuzzy (NF) model has been proposed for air quality forecasting and the concentration of nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) pollutant has been chosen for analysis. The available meteorological variables viz. temperature, pressure, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, visibility and the estimated concentrations through AERMOD. The application of introducing AERMOD aims to improve the forecasting ability of model on the basis the emissions from anthropogenic sources. The training and validation have been made with the eight and two year's available seasonal daily data respectively. The evaluation of the model has been made by comparing its results with observed values as well as other statistical models like MLR and ANN, which reveals that the NF model is performing well and can be used for operational use.
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