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The study evaluated the particulate matter trend and trace element concentrations, during the Diwali week for two consecutive years, November 2018 and October 2019. Diwali celebrations worsen the city’s air quality from poor to a severe category of air quality index (AQI). A peak rise in PM 10 concentration was found on Diwali day, 1.8 times more than a normal day of the same period. The concentration was 5.6-fold more than the permissible limit prescribed by National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), India, and 11.26-fold higher than the permissible limit of World Health Organization (WHO). The more firework bursting in the year 2019 results in the rise of PM 10 concentration by 132% compared with the previous year. Lead (Pb), a carcinogen, was found in higher levels, in Diwali samples of year 2019. The average metal concentration on Diwali day was found in the following order: Pb (396.17) > Cu (70.34) > Mn (66.34) > Cr (29.66) > Ni (4.96) in year 2019 while Ni (195.20) > Pb (149.45) > Mn (64.85) > Cu (13.44) in year 2018. A significant positive correlation between Cr and Pb, Cu and Pb, Cr and Cu, and with PM 10 have been observed, indicating their emission from a common source and the contribution of firecrackers to particulate pollution. Principal component analysis (PCA) identified the contribution of the bursting of firecrackers and vehicular emissions towards PM 10 pollution in the year 2019 and vehicular emissions and dust resuspension in the year 2018 over the megacity Prayagraj.

Air quality is an important subject of relevance in the context of present times because air is the prime resource for sustenance of life especially human health position. Then with the aid of vast sums of data about ambient air quality is generated to know the character of air environment by utilizing technological advancements to know how well or bad the air is. This report supplies a reliable method in assessing the Air Quality Index (AQI) by using fuzzy logic. The fuzzy logic model is designed to predict Air Quality Index (AQI) that report monthly air qualities. With the aid of air quality index we can evaluate the condition of the environment of that area suitability regarding human health position. For appraisal of human health status in industrial area, utilizing information from health survey questionnaire for obtaining a respiratory risk map by applying IDW and Gettis Statistical Techniques. Gettis Statistical Techniques identifies different spatial clustering patterns like hot spots, high risk and cold spots over the entire work area with statistical significance.

Purpose - The paper aims to demonstrate a geographic information system (GIS) based study on environmental impact assessment (EIA), due to air pollution, for a highway project. Design/methodology/approach - An approach has been designed to explore the scope for the combination of EIA and GIS in development for the proposed Allahabad Bypass Project. The air quality in the study area has been quantified in terms of the air pollution index (API). GIS has been exploited to obtain the spatial information for the prediction of air pollution impact at different suburban and rural areas adjacent to the stretch of bypass. Findings - The study has enabled the researchers to understand the variation in air quality along the total stretch of the bypass keeping in view the \"with\" and \"without\" project scenarios. The results obtained from the study show considerable increase in air pollution levels from baseline to the projected period of 20 years, due to gradual increase in vehicular traffic along the highway. Originality/value - The information presented in this paper serves as an example to quantify the negative impacts of countryside air quality associated with highway projects. The approach utilized the spatial evaluation of air pollution and helps to provide a critical insight to the problem, which is not apparent while carrying out such an exercise in the traditional manner. Practical implications - Hopefully, this study will encourage the highway planners in India to make a wider application of the technique for an indepth assessment of environmental impacts. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

In recent years, the rapid increase in the demand for street floor information has drawn remarkable interest to the use of laser scanner data. It provides highly dense point cloud data with three dimensional (3D) position, intensity and range from the sensor to target. The street floor detection in urban areas is difficult task due to the complicated patterns and many contextual objects. In present study an automated method for detection of street floor using the Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS) point cloud dataset has been proposed. Proposed method includes ground point filtering, rough street floor classification, edge detection and point in polygon test, in order to detect the street floor. Proposed method has been tested at a captured TLS point cloud. Completeness and correctness of the proposed method are 95.14% and 97.42% respectively. Automatically detecting a highly detailed street floor helps in maintaining the pavement by estimating the road surface conditions.

The use of oxide coated sand filtration as an alternative to current costly methods for water treatment has been reviewed. The paper highlights the importance of iron, aluminium and manganese oxides, including sand coated with these oxides, for removal of heavy metals and other impurities from water. The literature review showed that oxide coated sand is able to remove heavy metals (both anions and cations) and other impurities (e.g. natural organic matter, microorganisms, sulphate, manganese, etc.) from surface water or groundwater. In this review an extensive list of the use of oxide (iron, aluminium and manganese) coated sand in water treatment by adsorption and filtration processes has been compiled to provide a summary of available information. The information available on the capacity of coated sand for pollutant uptake is very scarce, however some data on the capacity of coated sand for heavy metals uptake have been compiled and presented. The coated sand could be an alternative emerging technology for water treatment without any side effects or treatment process alterations.

Direct climate aerosol radiative forcing is influenced by the light scattering of atmospheric aerosols. The chemical composition, the size distribution, and the ambient relative humidity (RH) determine the amount of visible light scattered by aerosols. We measured the aerosol light scattering coefficients at RH varying from 30% to 90% of the marine atmosphere at the Mace Head Atmospheric Research Station on the west coast of Ireland. At this site, two major air mass types can be distinguished: clean marine and polluted air. In this paper, we present measurements of light scattering enhancement factors f(RH) = σsp(RH)/σsp(dry) from a 1 month field campaign (January–February 2009). At this site in winter, the mean f(RH = 85%) (standard deviation) for marine air masses at the wavelength of 550 nm was 2.22 (±0.17) and 1.77 (±0.31) for polluted air. Measured σsp(RH) and f(RH) agreed well with calculations from Mie theory using measurements of the size distribution and hygroscopic diameter growth factors as input. In addition, we investigated the RH influence on additional intensive optical properties: the backscatter fraction and the single scattering albedo. The backscatter fraction decreased by about 20%, and the single scattering albedo increased on average by 1%–5% at 85% RH compared to dry conditions.

Experiments are performed to determine the coherence properties of wave fields, produced by the broadband stellar sources on the earth surface, from the study of spectral changes produced on interference in the Young's double slit experiment. The spectral degree of coherence obtained experimentally in this study for four bright stars in the wavelength range from 325 nm to 660 nm is in close agreement with the value that is expected theoretically from the known angular diameter of the stars. It is shown that the spectral degree of coherence obtained experimentally by this spectral interferometric technique could be used to determine the angular diameter of stars.