Tale of Mumbai’s rising trend of air pollution in the metropolis
Proximity to sea has not helped in containing increasing pollution in the city
Every winter, smog-filled days and nights across entire north India are a common thing and by contrast, the western region looks much cleaner.
However, a new analysis of regional air pollution levels by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has shown that proximity to the sea has not helped in containing the increasing air pollution in the financial capital, Mumbai.
Spike in bad air days
Even though winter pollution levels in the western region are not as high as that seen in the Indo-Gangetic Plains due to its proximity to the sea and improved ventilation, the levels have been seen to be increasing despite the geographical advantages and favourable meteorology, the CSE analysis said.
In other words, increasing air pollution is not restricted to winters but is now an yearlong problem in Mumbai too.
“The number of bad-air days in Mumbai have doubled between 2019 and 2021, while good days are down by 20 per cent. This underscores the urgency of scaling up action across all sectors to prevent further worsening and to arrest the trend in this region,” executive director, research and advocacy, CSE, Anumita Roychowdhury said.
This new analysis, released on Wednesday, of real time pollution data is part of CSE’s air quality tracker initiative and also has an assessment of annual and seasonal trends in PM2.5 concentration for the period January 1, 2019, to January 9, 2022. This analysis is based on the real time data available from the current working air quality monitoring stations.