India was 8th most polluted country in 2022, with PM2.5 levels 10 times the WHO limit: IQAir report
EnvironmentIndia

India was 8th most polluted country in 2022, with PM2.5 levels 10 times the WHO limit: IQAir report

Bhiwadi in Rajasthan was the most polluted city in India and second-most polluted in central and south Asia region. Delhi was not far behind, followed by Darbhanga and Asopur.

   
Mobile anti-smog guns spraying water on roads of Delhi to control air pollution | Representational image | ANI file photo

Mobile anti-smog guns spraying water on roads of Delhi to control air pollution | Representational image | ANI file photo

New Delhi: Moving down three places, India stood 8th in a list of the world’s most polluted countries in terms of air quality in Swiss company IQAir’s 2022 World Air Quality Report.

As was the case the previous year, 12 of the 15 most polluted cities in central and south Asia in 2022 were Indian.

According to the report, India’s annual average PM2.5 level in 2022 was 53.3 μg/m3, slightly lower than the 2021 average of 58.1. However, it was several times higher than the annual PM2.5 concentrations of 5 μg/m3 limit under World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines.

With annual PM2.5 levels of 92.7 μg/m3, Bhiwadi in Rajasthan’s Alwar was the most polluted city in India and second-most polluted in the central and South Asia region in 2022. 

Delhi was not far behind with 92.6, followed by Darbhanga and Asopur in Bihar with 90.3 and 90.2 respectively. Other Indian cities that made it to the list of the 15 most polluted cities in the region include Patna, Ghaziabad, Dharuhera, Chapra, Muzaffarnagar, Greater Noida, Bahadurgarh and Faridabad. 

The report added that “roughly 60 per cent of cities in India included in this report experienced annual PM2.5 levels of at least seven times higher than the WHO guideline”.

On the bright side, at least seven Indian cities featured in the list of least polluted cities in the region: Tarakeswar, Digboi, Aladi, Kattupalli, Polampalle, Kharsawan and Muttayyapuram.

Acknowledging that air quality monitoring has increased in India over the past few years, authors of the report emphasised that the country “still lacks the ability to track the progress of reduction strategies through an effective and reliable emissions inventory”. 

The report also underlined the need for a “comprehensive national emission database” to determine sectoral emission reductions.


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Only 6 countries met WHO’s safe limit

Chad, the landlocked country in central Africa, was ranked the most polluted in the world with annual PM2.5 levels of 89.7 μg/m3. Second only to Chad was Iraq (80.1), followed by Pakistan (70.9), Bahrain (66.6), and Bangladesh (65.8).

According to the IQAir report, only 13 out of the 131 countries and regions included in the report succeeded in achieving PM2.5 concentrations at or below 5 μg/m3 — the WHO guideline for annual PM2.5 concentrations. These included Guam in the western Pacific Ocean with annual PM2.5 levels of just 1.3 μg/m3, French Polynesia (2.5), US Virgin Islands (2.9), Bermuda (3.0) and Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba (3.3) in the Caribbean.

At the same time, just six countries met the WHO’s safe limit namely Australia, Estonia, Finland, Grenada, Iceland and New Zealand.

“Worldwide, poor air quality accounts for 93 billion days lived with illness and over six million deaths each year. The total economic cost equates to over $8 trillion dollars, surpassing 6.1 per cent of the global annual GDP,” the report said. It also pointed out that “more than 90 per cent” of pollution-related deaths occur in low-income and middle-income countries.

In the context of Africa, the report said only 19 of 54 countries in Africa had “sufficient data available to be included in this year’s report, leaving 35 countries unaccounted for”.

Lahore was ranked the most polluted city in the Central and South Asia region, with Peshawar and Faisalabad the only other Pakistani cities on the list of the top 15 most polluted cities in the subcontinent.

For the report, IQAir collected PM2.5 air quality data aggregated from over 30,000 regulatory air quality monitoring stations and low-cost air quality sensors from 7,323 cities across 131 countries, regions, and territories.

(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)


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