Quality & Status

One of the key indicator of quality life is clean environment, which can be primarily  further disaggregated into air quality and  water quality . The atmosphere, which makes up the largest fraction of the biosphere, is a dynamic system that continuously absorbs a wide range of solids, liquids and gasses from both natural and man made sources.. Unfortunately, air in the most Indian cities has become highly polluted and concentration of certain pollutant exceeds WHO safety limits by large margins. 

The status of air quality depends upon the concentration of its constituents, which are regarded as 'pollutants' if their concentration exceeds certain threshold value. Natural pollution sources include fires, wind erosion, volcanic activities, etc. Anthropogenic air pollution is caused by various manmade activities like, industries, traffic,  domestic and agriculture sources. The degree to which air pollutants discharged from various sources in particular area depends largely on meteorological conditions like wind speed & direction, temperature, height etc. The important  gases which act as pollutants are oxides of sulphur compounds( So₂, So₃, H₂S), nitrogen compounds ( NO,NO₂,NH₃) and suspended particulate matter (SPM). When the air is not clean, the entire environment is affected because both plants and animals depend on air to breath. Breathing unclean air causes health problems, even in humans. Over long periods of time, air pollution may damage the ozone layer and affect global climate through the greenhouse effect. The maximum permissible limit for main air pollutants is shown in the graph for industrial, residential & sensitive areas.
                                Limits for Ambient Air Pollutants

 
Source : PPCB

The air quality in Punjab has been deteriorating not only due to industrial and urban growth, but also due to modern agriculture and living practices. In order to protect human health, vegetation and other living creature, property, and environment from the adverse affect of air pollution, National Ambient Air Quality Standards ( NAAQM) have been set by Central  Pollution Control Board (CPCB). The air quality Standards are primarily developed on dose  effect/ dose response relationships. The standards are integral part of the air quality management, which are require to set long term as well as short term for air quality improvement and formulation of strategies an d implementation of various programmes for achieving these goals. 

The air quality of various cities/ towns of the state has been monitored under NAAQM scheme financed  by CPCB  and AAQM scheme financed by State Government. In the state regular monitoring of ambient air quality is being carried out by Punjab Pollution Control Board. The status of Ambient Air quality in different cities /towns for Industrial areas is given below in the table. 

    Units:    µg/m³                                                              Source: PPCB 2001 

Data indicates that a number of cities/ industrial towns show high degree of pollution with regard to  the suspended particulate matter(SPM) in industrial zones of  ludhiana, Mandi Gobingarh, Amritsar, Jalandhar and Batala.  Mandi Gobindgarh has also been indentified by the MoEF as the highly polluted town of the state. So keeping in view the gravity of degrading air quality in the state the PPCB has been taking various steps by both planning and enforcement to check the further degradation of air quality. 

It is now quite apparent that threats to the nations environmental well being  may not arise outside its border. To Steer a course of sustainable development requires that India finds the means and mechanisms to take collective action to protect   air, water, land and biodiversity through policies that are cooperatively defined and implemented