Air quality panel ropes in IIT-D, TERI to develop tools for reducing Delhi pollution
By TIOL News Service
NEW DELHI, JAN 23, 2021: THE Commission for Air Quality Management in the National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas (CAQM) has entrusted several technical institutions to develop a 'Decision Support System' (DSS) tool to capture the sources and nature of emissions in the capital.
The panel has entrusted the work of developing the DSS system to expert groups such as The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) to develop a fine resolution emission inventory and Delhi's Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-D) and National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) to develop short and long-term control interventions and to identify hot spots.
Pune-based India Meteorological Department (IMD) and Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) will forecast air quality using their weather models, while the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) has been assigned the job of integrating the physical, chemical and engineering component on a common platform and simplifying the findings.
The DSS will have a web and multi-model based operational and planning decision support tool.
"This tool will help immensely in capturing the static and dynamic features of the emissions from various sources. It will have an integrated framework to handle both primary and secondary pollutants using chemical transport model," the Environment Ministry said on Friday.
The system will also be able to handle the source specific interventions with the framework to estimate benefits of interventions and will focus on presenting the best results in a comprehensive user friendly and simple format for different users.
The sources of emissions covered will include industries, transport, power plants, residential, DG sets, road dust, agricultural burning, refuse burning, construction dust, ammonia, volatile organic compounds, and landfills.
The Artificial Intelligence (AI) based expert system will suggest the interventions to be implemented by the regulatory organisation such as the Central and State pollution control boards. The on-field implementation will be monitored by citizen watch groups and professional NGOs independently, the statement said.