Air quality in Hisar

Does Hisar have a bad level of air pollution?

Hisar is a city located in the northwestern region of India, being part of the Haryana state and sitting approximately 164km west of New Delhi, the capital of India. It is classified as a ‘counter magnet’ city for the capital, being a place where extended networks of economic growth and infrastructure can take place as an alternative to the capital, which already sees excessive amounts of its own activity occurring. This factor, along with that of Hisar’s own rapid growth, has seen large elevations of pollution occurring and the level of air quality becoming considerably poorer.

Hisar is subject to many of the same pollutive causes that other cities across India also have to deal with, however the city has found itself as being a place where particularly bad levels of air quality have been recorded, presenting a great amount of danger to its citizens.

In the early portion of April 2021, Hisar was seen with US AQI readings of 135, a high reading that would place it in the ‘unhealthy for sensitive groups’ bracket for that particular day. As well as this, when observing the hourly US AQI readings (a unit of pollution measurement that takes into consideration multiple air contaminants), it can be seen that numbers as high as 370 were recorded, indicating that Hisar is subject to some extreme spikes in air pollution throughout the course of a single day, with lows of 80 also being present.

The aforementioned reading of 370 would place Hisar at that point in time into the ‘hazardous’ air quality bracket, showing that these extreme elevations in pollution are both sporadic and ever present, and as such individuals should take great care to utilize preventative measures, such as avoiding outdoor activity, physical exercise in areas that are polluted, as well as the wearing of fine particle filtering masks if outdoor movement is necessary.

Looking at the data collected over the course of 2020, Hisar came in with a PM2.5 reading of 81.1 μg/m³, an extremely high reading that would place it into the ‘unhealthy’ air quality ratings bracket, which requires a PM2.5 reading of anywhere between 55.5 to 150.4 μg/m³ to be classified as such. This reading is indicative that much of the year would see clouds of smoke and haze permeating the atmosphere, alongside harmful particulate matter and many other types of air contaminants, some of which will be mentioned in following.

This PM2.5 reading of 81.1 μg/m³ placed Hisar in 13^th place out of all cities ranked in India, as well as in 14^th place out of all cities ranked worldwide in 2020, showing that many pollution reducing initiatives will need to be introduced as soon as possible so that the quality of the air may see improvements, thus lessening the ever present threat of pollution related illnesses for its population.

What are the main causes of polluted air in Hisar?

As with many cities across the country, there are a number of the same pollution causing issues present in Hisar, with ones such as crop or stubble burning by farmers being of primary concern, due to the rapid spikes in air pollution levels that are caused by these vast swathes of smoke, particularly if prevailing winds happen to blow the smoke directly over any adjacent cities. The burning of such organic material can release a myriad of harmful chemicals and hazardous particulate matter into the air, typically being of the fine (PM2.5) variety, and thus able to penetrate deep into people’s lungs and cause all manner of adverse health conditions.

PM2.5 refers to particulate matter that is 2.5 micrometers or less in diameter, being approximately 30% the width of a human hair, with ultrafine particles going down to sizes even smaller. Due to this great danger that it presents when inhaled, it is one of the major components used in the calculation of the overall AQI, or air quality index rating, as well as being a potent measure of air pollution in its own right.

Other sources of such materials include cars and other vehicles, many of which are aged and well past their best years, also running on lower quality fuels, with both of these factors being attributed to a lack of stringent rules regarding fuel and vehicle conditions. Other prominent causes include construction sites, road repairs and any other activity that causes large amounts of dust and other finely ground particles to be released into the atmosphere, as well as factories and power plants also playing their part in the higher pollution levels.

When does Hisar have the worst pollution levels?

Observing the data collected over the course of 2020, it can be seen that whilst much of the year still maintained some fairly bad levels of air pollution, there were certain months where the PM2.5 count rose even higher, often correlating with a number of reasons, sometimes related to meteorological conditions (such as a fall in temperature), as well as anthropogenic response, such as people burning extra wood or charcoal in their homes, along with increased demand for energy from power plants, thus increasing the amount of fossil fuels such as coal or natural gas being combusted at such facilities.

The period that showed the worst level of air quality was at the end of the year, with October through to December having PM2.5 readings of 134 μg/m³, 133.2 μg/m³ and 114.7 μg/m³ respectively. This made October the most polluted month with its reading of 134 μg/m³, being somewhat close to moving up to the next pollution ratings bracket.

Does Hisar ever have clean air quality?

The cleanest months on record taken over the course of 2020 were July and August, with these two months being the only ones to fall out of the ‘unhealthy’ ratings bracket and move down to the ‘unhealthy for sensitive groups bracket’, with respective readings of 53.8 μg/m³ and 49.8 μg/m³.

What pollution is found in the air in Hisar?

With much of its pollution arising from both combustion and dust related sources, the pollutants found in the air would typically be ones such as the various oxides of nitrogen (NOx), as well as both nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and sulfur dioxide (SO₂), both of which see a large amount of their release from vehicles.

Other pollutants include ones such as finely ground silica dust, as well as black carbon and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Some examples of chemical compounds associated with the release of VOCs include ones such as benzene, styrene, xylene and formaldehyde. Ozone (O₃) would be prominent during times of greater sunlight, as well as other pollutants such as carbon monoxide (CO) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH's).