3:30 PM - 3:45 PM
[HCG28-01] Survey on rice straw burning in Punjab, India and efforts to improve the problem: Activities of the Aakash Project at RIHN
Keywords:crop residue burning, air pollution, emission of air pollutants
The large-scale post-harvest burning of rice straw in the states of Punjab and Haryana in northwestern India is well known to cause severe air pollution in the surrounding areas, most notably in the National Capital Region of Delhi. Some previous studies suggest that rice straw burning negatively affects air quality over the entire Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP), which may affect the health and well-being of hundreds of millions of people.
In order to identify avenues leading to a solution to this problem, we have launched an interdisciplinary research project, Aakash, at the Research Institute of Humanity and Nature (RIHN) in Kyoto, Japan. The name Aakash means sky in Hindi. Under the Aakash project, since the start in FY2020, we have conducted: (1) survey of emissions of air pollutants from straw burning in the states of Punjab and Haryana, (2) ACTM simulations using some different emission inventories, (3) analysis of air pollutants over northwestern India observed in-situ and by satellites, and (4) installation of small instruments to measure air-pollutants in this region. As the start of the project coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, we concentrated on studies related to changes in air pollutant concentrations during a period of temporary improvement in air pollution due to lockdown in India. This research activity was named Mission DELHIS (Detection of Emission change due to Lockdown: Human Impact Studies). In this mission, we successfully estimated the anthropogenic emission flux of nitrogen dioxide around Delhi (Misra et al. Scientific Reports, 2021). The results are reflected in ACTM simulations mentioned above.
For the past twenty years, crop-residue burning has been monitored by satellite measurements by MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board EOS Terra and Aqua, and later by Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on board Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) and NOAA-20. However, fire information observed by satellites is limited in time and space by the satellite orbit and cloud cover. In addition, many of those fires in agricultural areas cannot be detected because their spatial scale is smaller than the space resolution of those satellite sensors. As a result, emission estimates based on satellite-observed fire information are known to be considerably underestimated.
We developed bottom-up emission inventories for multiple air-pollutants based on agricultural statistics and the parameters published in the literatures, with the evaluation of possible range of uncertainties. District-wise bottom-up inventories indicated clearly larger values in the activity data (and subsequently the emissions of all air-pollutants) than those in other inventories developed based on satellite-observed fires. To improve the emission estimate of the air pollutants, various approaches have been taken, which will be discussed in the presentations in this session.
This presentation will introduce the activities of the Aakash project during the past two years, and discuss the uncertainties in estimating air pollutant emissions from straw burning and how to improve them. In addition, it will provide an introduction to the other presentations related to the Aakash project.
Acknowledgement
This research is financially supported by Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN: a constituent member of NIHU) Project No. 14200133 (Aakash).
In order to identify avenues leading to a solution to this problem, we have launched an interdisciplinary research project, Aakash, at the Research Institute of Humanity and Nature (RIHN) in Kyoto, Japan. The name Aakash means sky in Hindi. Under the Aakash project, since the start in FY2020, we have conducted: (1) survey of emissions of air pollutants from straw burning in the states of Punjab and Haryana, (2) ACTM simulations using some different emission inventories, (3) analysis of air pollutants over northwestern India observed in-situ and by satellites, and (4) installation of small instruments to measure air-pollutants in this region. As the start of the project coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, we concentrated on studies related to changes in air pollutant concentrations during a period of temporary improvement in air pollution due to lockdown in India. This research activity was named Mission DELHIS (Detection of Emission change due to Lockdown: Human Impact Studies). In this mission, we successfully estimated the anthropogenic emission flux of nitrogen dioxide around Delhi (Misra et al. Scientific Reports, 2021). The results are reflected in ACTM simulations mentioned above.
For the past twenty years, crop-residue burning has been monitored by satellite measurements by MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board EOS Terra and Aqua, and later by Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on board Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) and NOAA-20. However, fire information observed by satellites is limited in time and space by the satellite orbit and cloud cover. In addition, many of those fires in agricultural areas cannot be detected because their spatial scale is smaller than the space resolution of those satellite sensors. As a result, emission estimates based on satellite-observed fire information are known to be considerably underestimated.
We developed bottom-up emission inventories for multiple air-pollutants based on agricultural statistics and the parameters published in the literatures, with the evaluation of possible range of uncertainties. District-wise bottom-up inventories indicated clearly larger values in the activity data (and subsequently the emissions of all air-pollutants) than those in other inventories developed based on satellite-observed fires. To improve the emission estimate of the air pollutants, various approaches have been taken, which will be discussed in the presentations in this session.
This presentation will introduce the activities of the Aakash project during the past two years, and discuss the uncertainties in estimating air pollutant emissions from straw burning and how to improve them. In addition, it will provide an introduction to the other presentations related to the Aakash project.
Acknowledgement
This research is financially supported by Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN: a constituent member of NIHU) Project No. 14200133 (Aakash).