Gridded Emission Inventory of Criteria Air Pollutants for National Capital Territory, Delhi

The megacities of the world are experiencing a punishing level of air pollution where primary sources of emissions are industrial, residential and transportation. Delhi is also no exception and had been worst performing in terms of air quality and air pollution. In this backdrop, a high-resolution emission inventory becomes an essential tool to predict and forecast pollutant concentration along with the assessment of the impact of various government policies. This study aims to prepare a high-resolution gridded emission inventory (1km*1km) of criteria air pollutants (PM10, PM2.5, NO₂, SO₂ and CO) for Delhi-NCT (National Capital Territory).  The bottom-up gridded emission inventory has been prepared taking account of population density, land use pattern and socio-economic status. The emission from all the primary sectors has been taken into accounts such as transport, residential burning, industries, power plants, and municipal solid waste burning.  The emissions are estimated using emission factors and activity data for each sector. The emission factor for various fuel type burning is taken from CPCB (Central Pollution Control Board) reports and previous literature. Data corresponding to various sectors such as the amount of fuel consumed, population density, road density, traffic congestion points, industrial location, unauthorized colonies, slums, and total solid waste generation has been acquired from various government bodies, reports, and literature. The result reveals that the total estimated emissions from transportation, industries and domestic sector contribute nearly 72%, 60%, 52% of NOx, SO2 and PM10 emission respectively.  The transport sector has been found as the bulk contributor towards CO and NOx emissions. Domestic sector and Power plant emission have been found to be a bulk contributor of CO and SO2. Later, the spatial distribution of the emission is done using GIS technique (Arc-GIS). For spatial distribution of emission, district-wise population data, road density data, power plant location and digitization of the road network was carried out.