Roads are the backbone to economic activities. They occupy a considerable area of our urban spaces and are primarily designed for vehicular traffic making them significant contributors to air pollution. The major air pollutants contributing to roadside air pollution are particulate matter (PM), NOx, CO and SOx. Major sources of these pollutants are from exhaust pipes of vehicles, wear & tear of tires and deposition of road dust from vehicles. Various notable steps have been taken in an attempt to tackle the problem like banning leaded (Pb) petrol, introducing cleaner and efficient engines & fuel with the induction of successive Bharat Stage standards, etc. However, with incessantly increasing vehicular ownership, air pollution has become a very rampant issue.
As the saying goes; “you can’t control what you can’t measure”, measuring air pollutant concentration is an absolute necessity for any pollution abatement strategy. Thus, air pollution monitoring provides crucial insights into the air pollution problem. Results of monitoring data help us understand the trend and pattern of pollutant concentration, the extent of pollution, the dominance of specific pollutants, which resultantly enables us to identify potential sources of pollution. However, roadside pollution monitoring can be tricky sometimes, particularly in urban areas. Due to its complex, varying design and topographic characteristics of roads, it creates a street canyon effect that influences pollution distribution by altering wind patterns. OIZOM’s White Paper on the selection of monitoring location provides comprehensive and scientific information about how to select a monitoring location and how to carry out roadside pollution monitoring.