A comparative assessment of air pollutants of smog in wagah border and other sites in Lahore, Pakistan

Abstract

Smog has become the fifth season of Pakistan especially in Lahore city. Increased level of air pollutants (primary and secondary) are thought to be responsible for the formation of smog in Lahore. Therefore, the current study was carried out for the evaluation of air pollutants (primary and secondary) of smog in Wagah border particularly and other sites (Jail road, Gulburg) Lahore. For this purpose, baseline data on winter smog from March to December on primary and secondary air pollutants and meteorological parameters was collected from Environmental Protection Department and Pakistan Meteorological Department respectively. Devices being used in both departments for analysis of parameters were also studied. Collected data was further statistically analyzed to determine the correlation of parameters with meteorological conditions and was subjected to air quality index. According to results, PM 10 and PM 2.5 were found very high above the NEQS. NOx concentrations were also high above the permissible limits whereas SO2 and O3 were found below the NEQS thus have no roles in smog formation. Air Quality Index (AQI) of pollutants was PM 2.5(86-227), PM 10 (46-332), NOx (26-110), O3 (19-84) and SO2 (10-95). AQI of PM 2.5 remained between moderate to very unhealthy levels. AQI of PM 10 remained between good to hazardous levels. AQI of NOx remained between good to unhealthy for sensitive groups’ levels. AQI of O3 and SO2 remained between good to moderate levels. Pearson correlation showed that every pollutant has a different relation with different or same parameters in different areas. It is concluded from the present study that particulate matter was much more responsible for smog formation. Although NOx also played role in smog formation. So there is need to reduce sources of particulate matter and NOx specifically in order to reduce smog formation in Lahore.

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“…Moreover, different aerosol treatments might explain the discrepancies between satellite-and ground-based observations in urban agglomerations. As shown in Figure 5, in comparison to implicit aerosol correction, applying explicit aerosol correction or no aerosol correction better captures the winter peaks in ground-based data in SIA-dominated Lahore 83 and the decreasing trend in the past decade in Buenos Aires with multiple sources of aerosols. 84 Broadly following the OMI aerosol/cloud treatment scheme from Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (MPI-C; Lorente et al, 2017), our retrieval separates the GOME-2 measurements into pure aerosols (explicit correction; cloud fraction <0.1 and cloud height <2 km), pure clouds (independent pixel approximation; cloud height >3 km), and mixtures of aerosols and clouds, accounting for 32.9, 31.4, and 35.7% of all valid pixels with cloud fraction <0.2, respectively.…”

“…Moreover, different aerosol treatments might explain the discrepancies between satellite- and ground-based observations in urban agglomerations. As shown in Figure 5 , in comparison to implicit aerosol correction, applying explicit aerosol correction or no aerosol correction better captures the winter peaks in ground-based data in SIA-dominated Lahore 83 and the decreasing trend in the past decade in Buenos Aires with multiple sources of aerosols. 84 …”

Navigating Smog: Legislation Addressing Children’s Right to Health in India and Pakistan

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