Seasonal and Spatial Variations of Particulate Matter and CO₂ Concentration in Srinagar City, Jammu and Kashmir

This study was undertaken to monitor the seasonal variation of particulate matter (PM) and CO2 of some selected tourist sites in Srinagar city, Kashmir valley, and to spatially interpolate them using the inverse distance weighting (IDW) technique in the QGIS software. The study/tourist sites include Harwan Garden, Shalimar Garden, Naseem Bagh, Nishat Garden, and Chesmashahi Botanical Garden, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir (SKUAST-K) Shalimar campus, and Lal Chowk. The air sampling was carried out every fortnight using Aerocet 831-Aerosol Mass Monitor and CDM 901-CO₂ Monitor three times during the day viz., morning, afternoon, and evening with three replications. The data proved that there was a statistically significant variation (p ≤ 0.05) between the seasonal (winter and spring) average mean and locational mean concentrations of the monitored pollutants. Also, meteorological parameters like average temperature, wind speed, and sunshine hours were negatively correlated with the pollutants’ levels at all the sampling sites. Indicating an increase in pollutants’ levels as these meteorological parameters decrease. Whereas, relative humidity showed a positive correlation with all the monitored pollutants. Which shows a higher concentration of all monitored pollutants as relative humidity increases.