Decadal growth in emission load of major air pollutants in Delhi

Abstract. The Indian capital megacity of Delhi is reeling under deteriorating air quality, and control measures are not yielding any significant changes, mainly due to a poor understanding sources emissions; hence, priority option in mitigation planning lacking. In this paper, we have made an attempt develop spatially resolved technological high-resolution gridded (∼0.4km×0.4km) emission inventory for eight major pollutants the region where activity data all possible unattended minor generated by organizing mega-campaign involving hundreds volunteers. It first time that able estimate decadal growth emissions various comparing newly developed 2020 with SAFAR (System Air Quality Weather Forecasting Research) 2010 using identical methodology quantum data. estimated annual PM2.5, PM10, CO, NOx, VOC, SO2, BC, OC over National Capital Region (NCR) be 123.8, 243.6, 799.0, 488.9, 730.0, 425.8, 33.6, 20.3 Gg yr−1, respectively, year 2020. (2010–2020) PM2.5 PM10 found marginal at 31 % 3 %, respectively. maximum transport sector followed industrial other sectors. Maximum OC, NOx 57 34 91 shift sectorial changing policies examined. complete dataset available on Zenodo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7715595 (Sahu et al., 2023).