Fundamentals of Air Pollution: Sources, Effects and Mitigation

Overview

ABOUT THE COURSE:The proposed course is aimed to develop good concept and understanding of various topics related to air pollution and its sources with impacts on our Earth’s various ecosystem. In this course, the audiences will be able to learn basics about the evolution of the Earth’s atmosphere and comparison with the variety of planets existing out there in space. Several other topics such as urban heat island, meteorological parameters, lapse rate are the topic of concern and will be discussed in details. The course will also cover various aspects of aerosol and cloud interaction, air pollution and climate change as well as monitoring of air pollutants and their vertical profiling using satellites. This course, thus, includes from the basics of air pollution, sources and factors affecting it, impact and mitigation measures.INTENDED AUDIENCE:● Undergraduate, post-graduate, research scholars, teachers,librarian and professors of Colleges and Universities as well as industries dealing with pollution aspects● Chemical Engineering, Environmental Chemistry, Earth & Planetary Science, Energy, Engineering and Environmental Science● Science enthusiastic working in the areas of air pollution,policy makers and impact assessment researcher/reportersPREREQUISITES: Basic knowledge of Physics, Chemistry, Botany and Math at 10+2/ BSc levelINDUSTRY SUPPORT: CPCB and UPCB, policy makers and impact assessment researcher/reporters, MoEF & CC, DST

Syllabus

Week 1: Evolution and uniqueness of Earth’s atmosphere and its constituents, properties and relevance, Importance of GHGs in the atmosphereWeek 2:Air pollution: gaseous and particulate air pollutionWeek 3:Urban air pollution, road dust emission, Impact on green belt and plant photosynthesis, Urban heat island effectWeek 4:Atmospheric Aerosols: Sources, composition, chemistryWeek 5:Secondary aerosols: Formation and their importance Week 6:Air pollution and its impact: Health effects, plant photosynthesis, crop productivity, plant disease caused by deposition of air pollutionWeek 7:Methods for measuring air pollution and mitigation: Sampling techniques, Offline and online methodsWeek 8:Optical properties of aerosols: absorption methods: BC aerosols, BrC, Scattering optical methods: beta attenuation, AOD, radiative forcing and climatic impact of aerosolWeek 9:Aerosol chemistry and cloud interaction, aerosols as CCN, cloud formation and precipitationWeek 10:Air pollution and cryosphere (Antarctic, Arctic, Himalayas), snow albedo, melting of glaciersWeek 11:Aerosols as nutrients: Deposition of particulates species (limiting nutrients such as Fe, P, N) and acidic species (HNO3 , H2SO4) and its impact on Ocean pH, biogeochemistryWeek 12:Physical laws governing climate change