Crop Residue Burning in Northern India: Increasing Threat to Greater India

Authors

S. Sarkar, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Ramesh P. Singh, Chapman UniversityFollow
A. Chauhan, Sharda University

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-19-2018

Abstract

Crop residue burning (CRB) is a recurring problem, during October–November, in the northwestern regions (Punjab, Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh) of India. The emissions from the CRB source regions spread in all directions through long-range transport mechanisms, depending upon the meteorological conditions. In recent years, numerous studies have been carried out dealing with the impact of CRB on the air quality of Delhi and surrounding areas, especially in the Indo-Gangetic Basin (also referred to as Indo-Gangetic Plain). In this paper, we present detailed analysis using both satellite- and ground-based sources, which show an increasing impact of CRB over the eastern parts of the Indo-Gangetic Basin and also over parts of central and southern India. The increasing trends of finer black carbon particles and greenhouse gases have accelerated since the year 2010 onward, which is confirmed by the observation of different wavelength dependent aerosol properties. Our study shows an increased risk to ambient air quality and an increased spatiotemporal extent of pollutants in recent years, from CRB, which could be a severe health threat to the population of these regions.

Comments

This article was originally published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, volume 123, in 2018. DOI: 10.1029/2018JD028428

Recommended Citation

Sarkar, S., Singh, R. P., & Chauhan, A. (2018). Crop residue burning in northern India: Increasing threat to Greater India. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 123. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018JD028428

Peer Reviewed

1

Copyright

American Geophysical Union