Atmospheric contamination of archaeological monuments in the Agra region (India)

India’s cultural heritage: Air quality effects amidst COVID-19 lockdown and seasonal variability

“…(Bharti, 2013;Spezzano, 2021;Sablier and Garrigues, 2014;Metallo et al, 1995;Graue et al, 2013;Fuente et al, 2013;Karaca, 2015). However, these destructive changes are especially acute in urban centers (Saha et al, 2008;Singh et al, 2012;Miranda et al, 2017) due to the rapid development of industries, urbanization, transportation, and energy production (e.g., coal), which are the major source of aggressive air pollutants such as sulphur dioxide (SO 2 ), nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ), tropospheric ozone (O 3 ), and particulate matter (Varotsos et SO 4 and HNO 3 acids respectively, in the atmosphere precipitates on the earth as acid rain that results in the yellowing of the white marble and limestone of the Taj Mahal (Camuffo, 1992;Sharma and Sharma, 1982;Skymet Weather Team, 2015) and tarnishing the shine of the Golden Temple in Amritsar (Camuffo, 1992;Rao, 2015). Tropospheric ozone, being the precursor of NOx and VOCs (Agathokleous et el., 2020) exacerbates the corrosion process, in addition, to a direct impact on rubber, plastic, textiles, paint, and surface coatings of cultural heritage structures (Screpanti & DeMarco, 2009;Huang et al, 2019).…”

“…Transportation, infrastructure development, industrial development, road dust, and burning crop residues and fossil fuels are the major contributors to PM in Delhi(Sahoo et al, 2021). Signi cant concentrations of PM at Agra are due to heavy transportation, industrial activities including power plants, iron foundries, railway shunting yards, glass works and automobiles etc (Sharma and Sharma, 1982)…”