Assessment of Air Quality in Dominant Landuses of Low hills in Himachal Pradesh-India

Kalyani Supriya

Abstract: The study was carried out to investigate the status of air quality parameters namely Particulate Matter (PM10), Sulphur dioxide (SO2), Nitrogen-dioxide (NO2) and VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) under four dominant landuses categorised as agriculture, urban, peri-urban and forest at 24 representative locations in low hill region of Himachal Pradesh. The results revealed that the concentration of SO2, PM10 and VOCs found to be maximum in urban site followed by peri-urban and agriculture and minimum at forest landuse except NO2 which was found maximum at agriculture > urban > peri-urban > forest landuses. Irrespective of seasons, all four pollutants were found maximum during post-monsoon and minimum during pre-monsoon. The air quality index (AQI) of ambient air was found to be good in all the selected landuses and mapped using ERDAS GIS software.

Keywords: Air quality, dominant landuses, air pollutants, AQI, GIS mapping