EGU21-3289
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-3289
EGU General Assembly 2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Day-to-day variations in paddy-residue burning and residential heating emissions control aerosol pollution peaks in rural north-west India

Harshita Pawar and Baerbel Sinha
Harshita Pawar and Baerbel Sinha
  • Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali, Sector 81, S.A.S Nagar, Punjab 140306, India.

November onwards, the poor air quality over north-west India is blamed on the large-scale paddy residue burning in Punjab and Haryana. However, the emission strength of this source remains poorly constrained due to the lack of ground-based measurements within the rural source regions. In this study, we report the particulate matter (PM) levels at Nadampur, a rural site in the Sangrur district of Punjab that witnesses rampant paddy residue burning, using the Airveda low-cost PM sensors from October to December 2019. The raw PM measurements from the sensor were corrected using the Random Forest machine learning algorithm. The daily average PM10 and PM2.5 mass concentration at Nadampur correlated well  (r > 0.7) with the daily sum of VIIRS fire counts. Agricultural activities, including paddy residue burning and harvesting operations, contributed less than 40% to the overall PM loading, even in the peak burning period at Nadampur. We show that the increased residential heating emissions in the winter season have a profound and currently neglected impact on ambient air quality. A dip in the daily average temperature by 1 ºC increased the daily emission of PM10 by 6.3 tonnes and that of PM2.5 by 5.8 tonnes. Overall, paddy harvest, local and regional paddy residue burning, residential heating emissions, ventilation, and wet scavenging could explain 79% of the variations in PM10 and 85% of the variations in PM2.5. Day to day variations in PM emissions from residential heating in response to the ambient temperature must be incorporated into emission inventories and models for accurate air quality forecasts.

How to cite: Pawar, H. and Sinha, B.: Day-to-day variations in paddy-residue burning and residential heating emissions control aerosol pollution peaks in rural north-west India, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-3289, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-3289, 2021.