Air quality in Greater Noida

Is Greater Noida badly polluted?

Greater Noida is a city located in the Gautam Budh Nagar suburban district of India, named after Gautama the Buddha and being part of the state of Uttar Pradesh. As a planned city (one that was conceived with its future growth and urban planning already mapped out in advance), it stands as one of worst cities in the world in terms of its air pollution levels, with a multitude of reasons all contributing to this factor.

In April of 2021, Greater Noida was seen with a US AQI reading of 132, a number that placed it into the ‘unhealthy for sensitive groups’ bracket, which as the name implies, presents a significant health risk for vulnerable portions of the population, as well as even young and healthy adults with no pre-existing health problems. These vulnerable groups are typically ones such as babies, young children, the elderly as well as pregnant mothers, all of whom can suffer from dire consequences as a result of excessive pollution exposure, be it both acute or chronic (long term) in its nature.

Observing the US AQI within the course of a single day in early April, it can also be seen that there are many dangerous spikes in the US AQI level, some of which go well up into the ‘unhealthy’ ratings bracket, with numbers as high as 192 being present. Whilst these levels are subject to fluctuation (with lows of 107 also being present), it stands to reason that the city has some major pollutive issues that will require some intelligent intervention if it is to see improvements in its readings over the coming years. Looking at its reading in 2019, it also presented with a poor PM2.5 reading as its yearly average.

Stepping forward by a year and looking at the data recorded in 2020, Greater Noida presented with a PM2.5 reading of 89.5 μg/m³ as its yearly average, an extremely high reading that placed it within the upper echelons of most polluted cities worldwide. This reading of 89.5 μg/m³ placed it in 6^th place out of all cities ranked in India, as well as 7^th place out of all cities ranked worldwide, as of 2020. This indicates that the city has some extremely poor qualities of air, and as such many preventative measures should be taken.

The wearing of fine particle filtering masks as well as staying up to date on pollution levels via air quality maps available on this page (and the rest of the IQAir website), as well as the AirVisual app, can aid greatly in helping one to stay informed so that appropriate measures can be taken.

Why is Greater Noida so polluted?

The reasons behind Greater Noida’s pollution levels have many compounded factors involved in them, with meteorological conditions creating ideal conditions for the formation of certain types of pollutants, with anthropogenic activity causing the mass output of both chemical pollutants as well as both fine (PM2.5) and coarse (PM10) particles, all of which can cause great damage or irritation when inhaled.

One of the factors behind Greater Noida’s pollution levels would be the use, or rather heavy overuse, of vehicles, with a myriad of cars, motorbikes and tuk tuk’s all inhabiting the road, giving out large amounts of both chemical and finely ground particle pollution. Many of these vehicles would be of the aged variety, and as such would put out far greater amounts of soot, noxious oil vapors and other harmful chemicals that are produced as a result of the poor combustion process taking place within an aged engine (with lower quality fuels often compounding the situation further, with lack of stringent vehicle and fuel regulation adding to the issue).

Stubble burning, or the burning of organic matter in fields and farms in surrounding areas can also generate massive amounts of smoke, which depending on the wind direction and strength, can drift directly over the city and permeate its atmosphere with highly damaging smoke.

The burning of firewood and charcoal within homes is another major contributor, and other serious sources would include construction sites (which would be numerous in a city undergoing rapid development), road repairs as well as poorly kept or maintained roads, demolition sites, power plant and factory emissions, as well as pollution drifting over from other nearby cities, similar in its manner to the smoke from fires also finding their way into the city’s limits.

When is the air pollution level at its highest in Greater Noida?

With the data for 2020 now present, it can be seen that whilst much of the year had severe pollution levels, there were certain months where the PM2.5 count increased even further. With the figures in mind, there is an apparent increase shown towards the end of the year, with September coming in with a relatively lower reading of 62.6 μg/m³, before it is followed by a huge leap up to 134.4 μg/m³ in October, 136.6 μg/m³ in November and then the highest reading of the year in December, with a massive 177.9 μg/m³ being on record.

This reading of 177.9 μg/m³ would place December into the ‘very unhealthy’ pollution ratings bracket, which requires a PM2.5 reading of anywhere between 150.5 μg/m³ to 250.4 μg/m³ to be classified as such. As the name indicates, citizens would be under extreme respiratory duress during this time period, and as such preventative measures and reducing one’s exposure become of the utmost importance.

Is the air clean in Greater Noida during the year?

Whilst the whole year sees very high PM2.5 readings, it can be noted that there are several months of the year where the air quality becomes somewhat more appreciable (relatively speaking). These months were March through to September, all of which came in under 70 μg/m³, with March, June and August being the cleanest with readings of 55 μg/m³, 54.1 μg/m³ and 47.1 μg/m³ respectively.

This made August the cleanest month of the year with its reading of 47.1 μg/m³, as well as placing it within the ‘unhealthy for sensitive groups bracket’, with March and June also following suit, the only months of the year to fall into this lower pollution rating.

What are the main pollutant types found in Greater Noida?

The main type of air pollutants found in Greater Noida would be ones that typically arise from both combustion sources as well as dust or fine particle emitting events (such as construction sites, mining or road repairs). Some of these pollutants would be ones such as nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), sulfur dioxide (SO₂), ozone (O₃), carbon monoxide (CO), as well as black carbon and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Some examples of VOCs include chemicals such as benzene, methylene chloride, toluene, styrene and formaldehyde.