Unfavourable weather, crop burning and Diwali: Delhi’s air quality to get worse, say experts

“On Sunday, an increase in moisture in the air is expected because of an active western disturbance over Himachal Pradesh. An increase in humidity increases the amount of pollutants that can accumulate in the air. Added to that are the calm winds close to the surface. All these factors are expected to increase the concentration of pollutants, especially particulate matter,” said a senior official at the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

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According to scientists at the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), the contribution of crop residue burning is slowly decreasing. This observation is also backed by an analysis done by NASA scientist Hiren Jethva, who looked at past trends of crop-residue burning.

According to the analysis, the practice, where farmers burn paddy hay and stalk to clear their fields before sowing the wheat crop, was to be at its peak on November 1 and will start reducing thereon.

The fires will significantly reduce by the second week on November and are expected to stop by the end of the month.

In an earlier analysis using data from NASA’s software to track active fires, Jethva said that the number of fires was lesser this year as compared to the last.

On Thursday, the air quality index (AQI) value for Delhi was recorded at 393, putting air in the ‘very poor’ category. Faridabad, Gurgaon and Noida, however, recorded ‘severe’ air quality.

While wind speed picked up a little during the day on Thursday, the winds at night were calm and particulate matter concentration started to pick up.

At the RK Puram monitoring station at 10 pm, PM 2.5 was recorded at 351 µg/m3 — almost six times as high as the acceptable limit of 60 µg/m3. At Anand Vihar, among the most polluted locations in the city, PM 2.5 was 301 µg/m3.

Meanwhile, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal Thursday blamed the stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana for the rising air pollution in National Capital Region, besides accusing the Centre of not providing straw management machines to farmers.

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