Drones will be deployed at 100 hotspots in and around Bengaluru to identify the relative share of different sources of pollution.
The project was launched by the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) along with the Environment Management Policy Research Institute (EMPRI) on Tuesday. Two to three drones will be deployed in the hotspots over the next couple of months to collect the primary data.
Transport hotspots
The main focus of the project would be to explore the source chemistry of 35 identified transport hotspots, 36 residential biofuel regions, three industrial regions, seven solid waste management dumpyards, and eight major inlets to Bengaluru from outside, besides others.
NIAS Director Shaliesh Nayak said that it would probably be the first of its kind project in India when drones will be used to develop the emission inventory.
Also read: Bengaluru air five times worse than WHO guidelines, finds Greenpeace India study
According to EMPRI Director General Jagmohan Sharma, this project will develop gridded emissions of fine particulate pollutants in 200-m resolution, which would be unique and a useful step to micromanage the control measures.
NIAS said that the outcome of the project would benefit Bengaluru in two ways - one, it will be a step forward towards developing the first air quality early warning system for the city which Bengaluru citizens desperately need and two, it will provide a much needed recommendation to authorities like BBMP to prioritise the mitigation planning to eradicate the menace of air pollution.
Also around 50 volunteers and scientists will be conducting the fieldwork for the next few months to collect the primary data for the same.
Gufran Beig, Chair professor, NIAS, who will be steering this project said that emission inventories for Bengaluru has been developed in the past but mainly either gross estimate or using the secondary data sources or manual estimations of primary data.
Real-time scenario
However, this project will yield much higher resolution of emissions, identification of relative share of various sources and will utilise drone technology for the first time to identify emission sources, offering best precision and accuracy with significant reduction in uncertainty, because drones are photo-imaging the real-world scenario and dynamic data.
“There will be a two-day trial starting June 28 and drones would be deployed at Koramangala to start off with. The real survey will commence from June 30. The 100 hotspots would cover areas which have dense traffic, slums, dumpyards and we will get to know which is the source that is dominant in these hotspots,” said Prof. Beig.
