Union Minister of Earth Sciences Dr Jitendra Singh on Tuesday launched an Air Quality Early Warning System (AQEWS) for Delhi – NCR which will help the authorities to take timely action to clearly identify the sources of pollution and fight the menace.
The launch which comes just ahead of Diwali, forms part of the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav week
Singh said that Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), an autonomous Institute of Ministry of Earth Sciences has developed a new Decision Support System (DSS) and extended the ability of the existing air quality early warning system to give decision-making capability for air quality management in the Delhi – NCR region.
The link to the website is: https://ews.tropmet.res.in/dss/ (At present the website is viewed best in a desktop and soon it will be made compatible with mobiles on Andrioid and iPADS.
The website is designed to deliver quantitative information about:
* The contribution of emissions from Delhi and the surrounding 19 districts to the air quality in Delhi.
* The contribution of emissions from 8 different sectors in Delhi.
* The contribution from biomass-burning activities in the neighbouring states to the degradation of air quality in Delhi.
* The possible quantitative effects of interventions on the forecast air-quality event in Delhi.
This information would explicitly highlight the most important emission sources responsible for the degradation of air quality in Delhi and suggest possible solutions to ameliorate the same and could be used by policymakers. With a plethora of quantitative data, the AQEWS integrated with DSS could become a user-friendly tool for air-quality management in and around Delhi.
The website also has a feature to enable users to create their own emission reduction scenarios (from 20 different districts including Delhi) so as to examine the possible projected improvement in the air quality in Delhi for the next five days.
Also read: Weather condition, stubble burning lead higher pollution on Diwali: CPCB
