Pollution causes 1 lakh premature deaths in cities: Study

 

New Delhi: Citing how rapid degradation in air quality is taking a toll on human lives, a study has said that exposure to air pollution has been linked to 100,000 excess premature deaths in the Indian cities of Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai, Surat, Pune and Ahmedabad between 2005 and 2018.

The international team of scientists which aimed to address data gaps in air quality for 46 cities in Africa, Asia and the Middle East using space-based observations from instruments onboard NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) satellites for 2005 to 2018 warned that the worst effects of air pollution on health will likely occur in the coming decades.

The study, published last week in the journal Science Advances, shows rapid degradation in air quality and increases in urban exposure to air pollutants which are hazardous to health. The researchers found significant annual increases in pollutants directly hazardous to health of up to 14 per cent for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and up to 8 per cent for fine particles (PM2.5).

They also found an increase in the level of up to 12 per cent for ammonia and up to 11 per cent for reactive volatile organic compounds.  The team, including researchers from the Harvard University in the US, attributed this rapid degradation in air quality to emerging industries and residential sources like road traffic, waste burning, and widespread use of charcoal and fuelwood.

"Open burning of biomass for land clearance and agricultural waste disposal has in the past overwhelmingly dominated air pollution in the tropics," said study lead author Karn Vohra from University College London (UCL) in the UK.

"Our analysis suggests we are entering a new era of air pollution in these cities, with some experiencing rates of degradation in a year that other cities experience in a decade," said Vohra, who completed the study as a Ph.D. Student at the University of Birmingham, UK.

The study found that the increase in the number of people dying prematurely from exposure to air pollution was highest in cities in South Asia.

Dhaka, Bangladesh, saw a total of 24,000 excess premature deaths, while the Indian cities of Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai, Surat, Pune and Ahmedabad had 100,000 excess deaths. (Agencies)