NASA’s declarations on Air Pollution in Developing Countries: India & China at the top of the list

Image source The Economic Times

Urban Smog: Transformation of Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) into ground level ozone, a major pollutant to respiratory system

A report declared by American Geophysical Union, San Francisco, US, on the rate of global air pollution initiated by NASA, declares that the air quality of developed nations from Europe, the US and Japan have improved notably. However, the threats are rising drastically in the developing nations, like India, China, and the Middle East. Unlike the developed countries, these developing countries are yet to consider emission control regulations in their legislative executions.

Based on the tracking results collected for more than a decade (from 2005-2014) from 195 cities, the indicators state that Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) are found in most of the cities in both developed and developing countries. The maps of NASA's high-resolution Aura satellite declare that due to extensive economic developments and expansion of industry, the yellow-brown nitrogen dioxide gas is emitted from cars and industrial power plants.

The team of scientists led by Bryan Duncan, from Goddard Space Flight Centre, NASA, US, stated that they used Dutch-Finnish Ozone Monitoring Instrument and found that the increase in the air pollution patterns are not a random process. In this context, Duncan said, “With the new high-resolution data, we are now able to zoom down to study pollution changes within cities, including from some individual sources, like large power plants.”

Thus, by comparing the records of the satellite about the emission controls regulations, national GDP and growth of urbanisation; the researchers noted that Europe and the US were earlier marked to be the largest emitters of NO₂. However, in last decade, 50% reduction of this emission is noted in Western Europe, and 20% to 50% reduction in the US.

On the contrary, India with coal-burning power plants in Chhattisgarh and world’s largest petrochemical complex Jamnagar, gets rated to be one of the most pollutant nation in the world. Along with India, China gets noted as the developing hub for all kinds of manufacturing products and as such has 20% to 50% increase in NO2 in its air, especially in North China Plain regions.

Further details are published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.

Via ZeeNews & The Hindu

Keywords Nitrogen dioxide, NO2, pollution, NASA, India