Linking air quality with built environment using land use regression model: a case of Delhi

Abstract

Indian cities are growing rapidly, with increasing urbanisation and continuous development. The air pollution in India has increased tremendously that the urban air quality ranks worst when compared with other nations in terms of air quality. From approximately three million premature deaths across the world every year, the highest numbers are associated with India because air pollution. Studies indicate that the respiratory diseases in Delhi are approximately 12 times more as the national average due to air pollution. The NCT of Delhi is selected as a case study area which ranks 1st in the metropolitan area in India with very poor air quality. Six locations around monitoring stations based on different land uses of 1km buffer are considered. This research focuses to find out the relationship between air quality and built environment indicators in the study region because built environment indicators influences air quality in a way as said by many researchers, and the study of this will help in understanding the problem of air pollution deeply which will help to analyse the relationship of the pollutants in urban areas with built environment through land use regression model. To fulfil this, the objectives are to understand the cause and consequences of air pollution; to find out the relationship of air pollutants and built environment indicators like proximity to Central Business District, Traffic Volume Count, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, Metro Station, Bus Station & Road Density, Non-Residential Ratio and pollutant concentrations of SO2, NO2, OZONE, PM2.5 & PM10. Based on the analysis the research will draw strategies based on the dependency between pollutant concentrations and built environment indicators. The analysis tells us that there is relationship which do exist between pollutants and built environment variables except Ozone which is not related to any built environment indicator and no. of intersections is the only built environment variable which does not make any significant contribution in any pollutant. Suitable strategies and interventions is suggested to mitigate air pollution according to the relationship established in the buffer areas like increasing Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, creating green buffers between two different types of land uses, increasing Non-motorized transport, shifting to cleaner fuels and electric vehicles, revision in earlier strategies etc, DCR provisions to control air pollution in master planning etc.