Assessments of population exposure to environmental pollutants using air quality measurements during Commonwealth Games-2010

Abstract

During the “Commonwealth Games” 2010 (CWG-2010) in Delhi, the Indian government has implemented an ambitious project “System of Air quality Forecasting And Research (SAFAR)” for monitoring and forecasting air-quality scenario. Using high-precision spatio-temporal measurements of criteria pollutants from the SAFAR network, the number of cases are estimated for total, cardiovascular and respiratory mortalities and hospital admissions. In a thinly populated airport area, the excess number of cases for total mortality show ∼10 for PM_2.5 and 25 for PM₁₀, whereas, ∼110 for PM_2.5 and ∼300 for PM₁₀ in most populous Delhi University (DU) area. Cardiovascular mortality in airport area show ∼5 and <10 for PM_2.5 and PM₁₀, respectively, but, in DU area show ∼55 for PM_2.5 and ∼140 for PM₁₀. In DU locality, respiratory mortality shows ∼7 and ∼20 for PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ and, hospital admissions show ∼11 and ∼30 for PM_2.5 and PM₁₀, respectively. In airport area, excess cases of respiratory mortality and hospital admission tends to one for exposure to PM_2.5 or PM₁₀ levels indicating effective exposure is the key factor for health hazards. As public health gains, low air pollution levels were observed before the CWG due to effective washout by monsoonal rain and during CWG under policy-induced air quality measures could increase the life expectancy as against to post-CWG period. These results are important for the megacities in developing world as the SAFAR project is internationally recognized by the Global Urban Research Meteorology and Environment of the World Meteorological Organization.

• Air-quality
• CWG-2010
• excess number of cases
• megacity
• relative risk
• SAFAR

Acknowledgements

Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune is supported by the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Government of India, New Delhi. Authors sincerely acknowledge the whole-hearted support of Prof. B. N. Goswami, Director, IITM, Pune. Authors appreciate the efforts of entire team involved in SAFAR project under the MoES.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.