IJSART - Volume 4 Issue 5 – MAY 2018 ISSN [ONLINE]: 2395-1052

Evaluation of Ambient Air Pollution: A Case Study of

Varanasi, U.P., India
Shailendra Kumar Tripathi1
1
Sampurnanand Sanskrit University, Varanasi, U.P.

Abstract- Man is making rapid strides in science and carry overload of passengers, poor maintained and conditions
technology. His eagerness to increase his comfort by utilizing besides this they driven by diesel engine. It is estimates that
the natural resources resulted rapid industrialization and diesel combustion emits 84 g/km of particulates as compared
abnormal urbanization, which consequently witness excessive to 11 g/km in CNG (Nylund and Lawson, 2000). Motor
air pollution. The Varanasi city due to its rapid urban automobiles produce a range of particulate matter through the
development, various construction projects sanctioned from dust produced from brakes, clutch plates, tires and ultimately
government and exponential growth in the vehicular usage through the re-suspension of particulates on road surfaces
and fuel consumption resulted poor ambient air quality. On through vehicles–generate turbulence (Watkins, 1991). Over
the other hand the decreasing forest cover and existing the three decades motor automobiles numbers have been
weather pattern of the city is not favorable for the dispersion doubling every 10 or fewer year in many Asian countries as
of air pollutants. An inventory of air contaminants is the first against a 2-5% annual growth rate in Canada, the United
step towards the control of air pollution. The purpose of the States, The United Kingdom and the Japan (Faiz et al., 1992).
present study was to assess the present air quality status of Two wheelers are the most speedily growing type automobile
Varanasi city and to compare the measured values with the in India. Vehicular pollution contribute about (72%) of the
recommended threshold limit values. The study has been total air pollution load followed by industries (19%) and
carried out in 5 major circles of Varanasi. Air samples were domestic (9%) in Delhi City (CPCB, 2001). This paper
collected using a High volume air sampler and analysis was discussed the concentration of pollutants such as sulfur
made for SPM, SO2, and NOx by means of BIS methods. The dioxide, oxides of nitrogen and suspended particulate matter
results showed higher value of all the parameters i.e. SPM, (SO2, NOx and SPM) at selected sites of Varanasi and their
SO2, and NOx beyond the CPCB limit. The study revealed a correlation analysis.
significant correlation between SO2, NOx and SPM.
II. MATERIALS AND METHODS
Keywords- Industrialization, Ambient air, Threshold, High
volume air sampler, Correlation. 1. Study area:

I. INTRODUCTION Varanasi is an ancient religious city, on the bank of

holy river Ganga. Being an important pilgrimage center,
Air pollution is a one of the alarming environmental problem thousands of tourists visit the holy city Varanasi from India
associated with urban areas. Various monitoring programmes and abroad. The city is famous for its cultural heritage, music,
have been undertaken to know the quality of air by creating art, craft and education. Varanasi is a major commercial and
vast amount of data on concentration of each air pollutant industrial center of eastern U.P. Varanasi is in north-eastern
(e.g., SPM, CO, NOx, SO2, etc.) in different parts of the part of the country at 25°0' to 25°16' N latitude and 82 5' to
world. (Biswanath Bishoi, 2009). Varanasi is world famous 83°1' E longitude. Varanasi has a total area of 78.5 sq km and
and one of the most important holy cities of India, famous for is under the management of Nagar Nigam.
Ghat, temples, natural beauty, light and festivals. It gets
millions of tourist every month, sometimes just in one day, Total five monitoring sites were selected for present
which increase the number of vehicle of various categories. study (Table-1). The first study site Lanka is a residential area
Varanasi undergo from tremendous increase of population, of Varanasi near Benaras Hindu University, posses a very high
number of vehicles, narrow roads, parking facility problems, number of motor vehicles throughout the day and night. The
ineffective achievement of laws etc. all these conditions site is also surrounded by hospitals and schools. Due to
responsible for jam like condition prevalent in almost all the presence of hospitals & colleges this area is very crowded.
traffic intersections of Varanasi. Moreover there is huge B.H.U. (Banaras Hindu University) has comparatively very
numbers of three wheelers. Most of these three wheelers are high dense forest and vegetations cover within the premises.

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IJSART - Volume 4 Issue 5 – MAY 2018 ISSN [ONLINE]: 2395-1052

The second site is Godowlia. It is the main marketing area of methods. The apparatus was kept at a height of 2 m from the
Varanasi due to this the crowd of pedestrians can be easily surface of the ground.
observed. Many temples are situated in nearby area. Therefore
vehicular load is not so high. The third site is Pandeypur. It is 3. Statistical analysis:
one of the main squares of the Varanasi in Trans Varuna area.
It is the common traffic point from where the vehicles moves The mean values and standard deviation of all three
towards Azamgarh, Gazipur, Gorakhapur. Therefore pollution air quality parameters i.e. SO2, NOx and SPM at different
level is almost very high, posse’s very dense traffic load. The study sites of Varanasi, U.P. were calculated using MS Excel
fourth site Sigra is one of the main and busy road of the city, 2010. The results were compared with the CPCB air quality
posses a high number of two wheelers, three wheelers and four standard (Patel and Koshta, 2018). Person’s correlation
wheelers vehicles, auto-rickshaws throughout the day. The coefficient values (r) were calculated using SPSS software
fifth site is Cantt Railway Station. It is the main junction point (SPSS Inc., version 10.0) to measure relationship between two
of the trains from all over the India and Varanasi bus station is variables and also show the degree of dependency of one
also situated near by this region due to this reason vehicular variable to the other (Tripathi and Vishwakarma, 2015).
load in this region is comparatively very high like buses,
trucks and many auto-rickshaws. III. RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Table 1. List of study area with their geo-coordinates The ambient air samples collected from all five study
Name of study Site Latitude Longitude sites were analyzed and presented in table-2, figure 1 and 2.
The results of correlation analysis is tabulated in Table-3 and
Lanka 25.3280 83.0275 graphically presented in figure 3.
Godowlia 25.3102 82.9717
1. Descriptive statistics
Pandeypur 25.3493 82.9934
Sigra 25.3112 82.9891 On a global basis, sulfur compounds enter the
Cantt. station 25.3176 82.9739 atmosphere to a very large extent through human activities
(Cronan, 2018). The SO2 value in present study was observed
to be highest at Cantt. St. (224.4±26.1 µg/m3) as compared to
2. Air Monitoring and Analysis:
other sites and it was found to be lowest at Lanka (114.6±12.8
µg/m3). This higher concentration of SO2 may be due to the
The ambient air quality such as Suspended
increased vehicular load mainly auto-rickshaws in this region
Particulate Matter (SPM), Sulphur di oxide (SO2) and Oxides
in comparison to the other sites (Wang et. al. 2018).
of nitrogen (NOx) were measured using High Volume
Sampler (HVS) (Envirotech APM-415/411) from November
Table 2. Average concentration (µg/m3) of various air
2017 to January 2018 at selected sites of Varanasi, by sucking
pollutants [Mean ± SD]
air into appropriate reagent for 24 hours and after air
monitoring it procured into lab and analysis for the
concentration level (Jha D. K., 2011). SPM analyzed using
gravimetric method. Ambient air allowed to enter into the
sampling device HVS through a 20.3 X 25.4 cm filter at an
average flow rate of 1.0-1.5 M3 per minute (Chauhan A.,
2010) SO2 and NOx samples collected by bubbling air sample
in a specific 30ml absorbing solution (potassium tetra-
chloromercurate (TCM) for SO2 and mixture of sodium
hydroxide and sodium arsenite for NOx) at an average flow
rate of 1.0-1.5 M3 per minute (Ipeaiyeda et. al, 2018). The
impinger samples were put in ice boxes immediately after
sampling and transferred to a refrigerator until analyzed. The
concentration of NOx was measured with standard method of High concentration of nitrogen oxides in the ambient
Modified Jacobs- Hochheiser method (Schmitt et. al. ,2018), air impact both humans and ecosystem badly and also play an
SO2 was measured by Modified West and Geake method important role in tropospheric chemistry. High NOX
(1956) (West, 1956,), SPM and RSPM using filter paper emissions are mainly observed in polluted regions produced

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IJSART - Volume 4 Issue 5 – MAY 2018 ISSN [ONLINE]: 2395-1052

by anthropogenic combustion from industrial, traffic and and environmental impacts such as soiling of materials or
household activities typically observed in large and densely smothering of vegetation (Monn, 2001). The value of SPM at
populated urban areas (Verstraeten et. al., 2017). In present pandeypur (4242.5±51.1 µg/m3) and godaulia (3868.8±43.2
study the highest value of NOx above CPCB standard (80 µg/m3) was found to be high as compared to the standard (100
µg/m3) was observed at Cantt. Station (151.27±26.10 µg/m3), µg/m3) and it was found to be lowest at lanka (851.6±33.6
Sigra (135.51±16.30 µg/m3), Pandeypur (128.36±20.07 µg/m3). Similar result was found in study carry out by O. C.
µg/m3) and Godowlia (114.09±17.43 µg/m3) whereas lowest Othman in 2010 (1175 µg/m3) and by many Indian
value below CPCB standard was found at Lanka (76.33±12.90 researchers also Sharma, 2005; Nayak and Chowdhury, 2018).
µg/m3). This may be due to traffic load, fuel quality and Heavy vehicles use in transport system and ongoing civil
cylinder temperature of diesel engine (Johansson et. al., 2009; construction works in urban area can be the important cause of
Shameer and Ramesh, 2017). high dust load in ambient air (Pandey, et. al., 2017).

2. Correlation Analysis

Correlation is a simplified statistical tool to establish

the relationship between two variables and also show the
degree of dependency of one variable to the other (Belkhiri et
al., 2010). Summary of correlation matrix ambient air quality
parameter is presented in table-3 and regression equation for
SO2 and NOx are given in Figure-3. Correlation analysis
reveals linear positive correlation of SPM with SO 2 (r=0.6595)
and NOx (0.7087). Similar result was found in a study
conducted by P.K. Sharma et. al. at Raniganj, 1990 (Between
SPM and SO 2 r=0.749 and of SPM and NOx r=0.699).
Similarly positive correlation was found between SO2 and
NOx (r=0.7833). This was the best correlation found in this
study. Similar result was found in a study conducted by Dilip
Kumar Jha et. al. at Port Blair (r=0.557).

Figure 1. Concentration of SO2 and NOx in ambient air.

Table 3. Correlation Matrix. of air quality parameters
Air parameter SPM SO2 NOx
SPM 1 - -
SO2 0.6596 1 -
NOx 0.7087 0.7833 1

Figure 2. Concentration of SPM in ambient air.

Suspended particulate matter (SPM) refers to particles

ranging in size from the smallest to a larger sized particles Figure 3. Correlation between SO2 and NOx.
commonly referred as “dust” and is associated with aesthetic
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IJSART - Volume 4 Issue 5 – MAY 2018 ISSN [ONLINE]: 2395-1052

Regression equation is used in data analysis to find Ecosystem Biogeochemistry (pp. 73-85). Springer, Cham.
out the relationship between dependent and independent
variables. Regression line represents the degree of linear [6] Faiz, A., Weaver, C., Sinha, K., Walsh, M. and Carbajo,
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Air Quality Parameters in Port Blair, India. Universal
IV. CONCLUSION Journal of Environmental Research and Technology.2011:
1(3). 301-310.
The present study was aimed to assess the ambient air
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parameter, which influence the other parameters. Pearson Adegboyega, D. A. (2018). Gaseous air pollutants
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