Air pollution and human health in Meerut (Delhi-NCR) region, India: A case study

Urban air quality in the DELHI-NCR region has been found to be critical, and Meerut city is no exception to this. In this study, an attempt has been made to analyze the ambient air quality in Meerut City by applying the Exceedance Factor (EF) method, where the presence of listed pollutants (PM2.5, PM10, NO₂, and SO₂) annual average concentration is classified into four different categories; namely high, moderate, and low pollution. Out of a total of three ambient air quality monitoring stations operating in Meerut city, one falls under the high category of NO₂ concentration, another for PM10, and the third one for SO₂. The causes of the high concentration of pollutants in the form of NO₂ and PM10 have been identified in earlier studies as industrial sources (41%), followed by vehicular emissions (30%) and dust particles (12%). Vehicular emissions that occur at ground level are the most important emissions. Later, a health assessment was undertaken with a structured questionnaire at three locations near monitoring stations. For this, a total of 150 respondents were surveyed from March to April 2022. It shows that respondents with eye infection/irritation (22.1%) outnumbered those with nose blockage (12.9%) and included skin disease (12.5%), cough (9%), sneezing (8.7%), dry cough (5.5%), asthma (4.4%), and bronchitis (2.7%). Around 47.9% of the respondents stay outdoors for 5-9 hours daily. With the pollution level recorded as critical, 23.6% of the respondents visited the doctor for the mentioned health problems in the last three months (including the survey time period).