Megacity Delhi atmospheric emission quantification, assessment and impacts (DelhiFlux)

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Inventories of emissions of pollutants to air form the basis for model predictions of air quality, visibility, human exposure, human health impacts, and climate change. They are further required to understand relationships between individual source locations or source types and targets. None of the model predictions and analyses can be better than the emission database on which they are founded. This project seeks to greatly improve the emissions inventory for the wider Delhi area, one of the most polluted conurbations globally. The emission inventory will be compiled at a 1 km x 1 km resolution with diurnal and seasonal temporal profiles. It will cover NOx, SOx, NH3, total volatile compounds with breakdown into its chemical profile, particulate matter in fine (PM2.5) and coarse (PM10) size ranges, together with the toxic metal components within, as well as CO2 and CO as combustion tracers. To improve the emission inventory we will make laboratory-based measurements of emission factors and also measure, for the first time in India, the emissions from individual vehicles under real-world driving conditions to characterize the actual Delhi vehicle fleet. We will further perform the first micrometeorological flux measurements of these compounds above the city and study their enrichment along a transect. This will provide further information on potentially missing sources and serve as a direct assessment of the quality of the emissions inventory. We will further apply a state-of-the-art chemistry and transport model to infer the concentrations that would be expected on the basis of the new emissions inventory for comparison against concentration data from air quality networks and the wider NERC-MRC-MoES-DBT programme.ODA compliance:By providing the emissions data required to assess human exposure and develop cost-effective solutions to combat air pollution in Delhi, the project will target poverty and development issues. Accurate knowledge of emissions is a key factor underpinning the development of mitigation strategies which will deliver improved public health, whilst further allowing economic growth. Both the UK and Indian research teams will benefit from their interaction and exploitation of complementary expertise. The project will leave a legacy beyond the project lifetime by increasing the research capacity of the Indian teams and providing the knowledge base which will allow the findings to be extrapolated to the rest of India. Thus, the project findings will continue to contributing to the improvement of life and welfare of more than a billion people.