Estimating pollen profiles and assessing relationships with meteorology, air pollutants and vegetation in three cities of India

Estimating pollen profiles and assessing relationships with meteorology, air pollutants and vegetation in three cities of India

Arzoo Dhankhar¹, Sagnik Dey², Darsy Darssan³, Nicholas J Osborne³

¹UQIDAR (University of Queensland, Australia- Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India)

²Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi

³School of Public Health, University of Queensland, Australia

 

Allergy, is, showing an increasing incidence over recent decades across the globe. Less emphasised is the impact of bioaerosols particularly ‘pollen’ on adverse respiratory health effects. India has some of the poorest air quality globally making it an important study area. Regular monitoring of airborne pollen is crucial to know the current prevalence and diversity of potential pollen allergens present in the air column. But most of the LIC and LMICs lack regular pollen monitoring both spatially and temporally.

In this study, we collected daily bi-hourly airborne pollen samples from three cities in India (Delhi, Rishikesh and Kolkata) for 5 weeks. These samples were collected using small portable pollen samplers (pollen sniffers). The pollen were counted using microscopy and the results were analysed. The study focused on assessing the relationships between daily pollen counts (total and grass), meteorological parameters (wind speed, relative humidity, temperature, rainfall), vegetation and air pollutants (PM_2.5, PM₁₀, NOx, SOx, O₃).

Poaceae and Chenopodiaceae-Amaranthaceae families were found to be the dominant airborne pollen families at the Delhi site since it was the peak growing season for grasses and weeds. The overall range for total pollen was highest in Rishikesh (300-500 pollen counts) than in Delhi and Kolkata. Among meteorology, rain, temperature, and wind were significantly correlated with bihourly pollen counts with p value < 0.05. Since the cities chosen for the analysis differ in pollution levels, the insights provide a better understanding of pollution and pollen effects.  The study also reflects upon a less explored method of airborne pollen collection, further adding meteorology effects on pollen to the research database. The results will be used to develop prediction model for grass pollen using variables like vegetation and meteorology.

Further work will be assessing pollen counts with respiratory health outcomes. The study’s objective is to provide valuable insights that can benefit to the policy makers, health care workers, scientist community and potentially help in reducing health burden of the country along with providing quality life for susceptible citizens.