This document discusses revising India's ambient air quality criteria and standards. It analyzes several key air pollutants, including particulate matter, benzene, and carbon monoxide. For each pollutant, it examines dose-response relationships, current levels in India, existing standards, and proposes new standards and their rationales based on health risks. It recommends removing area-based classifications for standards and instead providing generic standards for sensitive areas, tailored to the specific pollutants that impact each area. The primary goal is to establish standards that adequately protect human health across India.

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Review of Ambient Air Quality Criteria/Standards
MONITORING
FALLOUT
PLUME
RISE
WIND
TRANSPORT AND DISPERSION
IMPACTION
WASHOUT
TRANSFORMATION
Mukesh Sharma
Environmental Engineering and Management Program
Department of Civil Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
September 2007
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1
n
i
i
NOAEL
RfD
UF MF



  
  1
n
i
i
LOAEL
RfD
UF MF



  
 
UF = 10H x 10A x 10S
Long-term Effects

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Slope factor, Cancer Potency factor or Unit Risk factor
Slope factor = risk/(mg/kg-day)
Unit Risk Factor = risk/(µg/m3)

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S.No. Pollutant
1 Carbon Monoxide (CO)
2 Lead (Pb)
3 Oxides of Nitrogen (NOx)
4 Ozone (O3)
5 Sulphur Dioxide (SO2)
6 PM10
7 PM2.5
8 Benzene Soluble Fraction (BSF)
9 Formaldehyde (HCHO)
10 Poly-aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH)
11 Arsenic
12 Nickel
13 Mercury
14 Vanadium
15 Benzene
Pollutants for Standard Formulation

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•general description of the pollutant,
•dose-response based health risk evaluation,
•current levels in the country,
•current standards,
•basis for new standards and associated risk
•comparison
• pollutants having long-term effect should also have 24-hr along with
annual standard
______________________________________________________________
• dose-response relationship developed/published in Indian
•others and WHO.
______________________________________________________________
•cost of implementation of the standards
•implication to development projects
•primary criterion for suggesting the standard is human health.
Approach

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Example
Acceptable Air Concentration = Target Risk /(Unit risk factor)
Target risk = 1x 10-5 ; URF = 1 x10-3 (µg/m3)-1
Concentration = 1x 10-5 / 1 x10-3 (µg/m3)-1 = 0.01 µg/m3

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S.No. Pollutant
1 Carbon Monoxide (CO)
2 Lead (Pb)
3 Oxides of Nitrogen (NOx)
4 Ozone (O3)
5 Sulphur Dioxide (SO2)
6 PM10
7 PM2.5
8 Benzene Soluble Fraction (BSF)
9 Formaldehyde (HCHO)
10 Poly-aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH)
11 Arsenic
12 Nickel
13 Mercury
14 Vanadium
15 Benzene
Pollutants for Standard Formulation

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•general description of the pollutant,
•dose-response based health risk evaluation,
•current levels in the country,
•current standards,
•basis for new standards and associated risk
•comparison
______________________________________________________________
• dose-response relationship developed/published in Indian
•others and WHO.
______________________________________________________________
•cost of implementation of the standards
•implication to development projects
•primary criterion for suggesting the standard is human health.
Approach

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Averaging time
1-hour 8-hour 24-hour Annual
1 Benzene -
-
- 15ug/m3 5ug/m3
2 Carbon monoxide Retain old stds (2 mg/m3 –8-hr & 4 mg/m3 1hr)
3 Formaldehyde - 45 ug/m3 - -
4 Polycyclic Aromatic
Hydrocarbons (BaP)
- - 5 ng/m3 1 ng/m3
5 Arsenic - - 20 ng/m3 6 ng/m3
6 Lead - - 1 ug/m3 0.5 ug/m3
7 Mercury (24-hr) Total Mercury-15 ng/m3
Particulate mercury - 3 ng/m3
Vapour Mercury - 12 ng/m3
8 Nickel - - 25 ng/m3 -
9 Vanadium - - 200 ng/m3 -
10 Oxides of Nitrogen - - 80 ug/m3 40 ug/m3
11 Ozone 180
ug/m3
90 ug/m3 - -
12 PM10 - - 100 ug/m3 60 ug/m3
PM2.5 - - 60 ug/m3 40 ug/m3
13. BSF (benzene
soluble fraction)
- - 20 g/m3 -
14. Sulphur dioxide 260
ug/m3
- 80ug/m3 50 ug/m3

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Benzene

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Unit Risk Factor = 6 x10-6
S.no Risk Concentration
1 1/10000 17 ug/m3
2 1/00000 1.7 ug/m3
3 1000000 0.17 ug/m3
proposed annual average standard for the benzene 5µg/m3 – Lower Limit of WHO
24- hr Standard: 15 µg/m3 as three times of annual average

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Country Standard Concentration
measured as
To be achieved by
UK 16 µg/m3 – running annual
mean
31st Dec., 2003
European
Commission
5 µg/m3 –annual average 31st Dec., 2010
Japan 3 µg/m3 annual average Existing Standard
WHO Guidelines 5-20 µg/m3 – annual average
India (Proposed) 5 µg/m3 annual average
15 µg/m3 24-hr
Method of Analysis: Absorption

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Carbon Mono-oxide

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Carbon Mono-oxide
Current standards:
8-hr

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COHb level is not to exceeded, 2%
with factor of safety of 2:
· 20.0 mg/m3 (17 ppm) for 1 hour
· 6.0 mg/m3 (5 ppm) for 8 hours.
In view of the high indoor air CO levels (due to biomass burning) stringent
ambient air quality standards are proposed. The proposed standards
4 mg/m3 for 1 hour and 2.0 mg/m3 for 8 hours
Method of Analysis - NDIR

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Particulate Matter

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PEF = C1 + a1PM10; a1=-.031 at PM10 = 100 PEF
will be less than 5%

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Relative Risk of Cardiopulmonary mortality for North Zone
0.8
0.9
1.0
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
1.6
1.7
1.8 Patna
Chandigarh
Bhilai
Raipur
Korba
Delhi
Ahmedabad
Ankaleshwar
Surat
Vadodara
Vapi
Rajkot
Jamnagar
Faridabad
YamunaNagar
Jamshedpur
Bhopal
Indore
Jabalpur
Nagda
Satna
Talcher
Rourkela
Rayagada
Ludhiana
Jalandhar
MandiGobindgarh
Kota
Alwar
Jodhpur
Udaipur
Jaipur
Anpara
Varanasi
Lucknow
Gajraula
Kanpur
Noida
Dehradun
Kolkata
Howrah
Haldia
City
RelativeRisk
Mean Relative Risk Aceptable Relative Risk
To bring mean RR down to 1.05 across all cites for Cardiopulmonary Mortality
Required PM2.5 (annual) = 40 ug/m3 … this also ensures RR for lung cancer at 1.08
Cardiopulmonary mortality is about 15 times higher than Lung cancer mortality

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Proposed Annual standard PM2.5 = 40 ug/m3

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PM 2.5 for India
0
50
100
150
200
250
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62
City
PM2.5µg/m^3
Mean PM 2.5 Aceptable PM 2.5
1. Salem …47. Delhi… 63. Jalandhar

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BENZENE SOLUBLE FRACTION (BSF)
So Average Chemical Composition of PM2.5
The mutagenicity of air borne PM was shown to depend mainly on neutral and
aromatic compounds. Hideeki et. al. (1991) has reported that the mutagenic activity
of BSF from airborne particles was more in Ames Salmonella system. The study also
revealed that the major portion (about 95%) of the BSF of air filter samples is neutral
and aromatic hydrocarbon. BSF in coke oven emissions have been studied
extensively to represent the aromatic fraction (large fraction being PAH). In fact, for
BSF in PM in coke oven areas, a regulatory limit of 0.2 mg/m3 has been fixed
(Mastrangelo et al., 1996). BSOF of total particulate has been generally accepted as
an index of the health hazard.

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PM10 and BSOF Results of Vikas nagar station during 2003
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
2.01.03
28.01.03
10.02.03
27.02.03
03.03.03
28.03.03
10.04.03
29.04.03
01.05.03
02.05.03
10.06.03
27.06.03
01.07.03
30.07.03
12.08.03
27.08.03
12.09.03
29.09.03
10.10.03
03.11.03
19.11.03
04.12.03
18.12.03
yera 2003
PM10(ug/m3)
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
PM10(µg/m3)
BSOF(µg/m3)
BSOF
IIT VN JC Delhi
Concentrationsintheair(ug/m3)
0
50
100
150
200
250

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Location IIT (clean site) VN (Vikas Nagar)
Residential
JC (Juhi Colony)
Residential
%by w/w g/m3 % by w/w g/m3 % by w/w g/m3
BSOF 9.874.79 9.13 7.03 40.0019.96 106.7162.3 10.327.99 48.4842.35
Proposed Standard for BSF
As seen, BSF can be taken as an indicator of toxic
components of PM. Although the work place standard for
BSF has been reported as 200g/m3 (Mastrangelo, 1996), the
ambient air quality standard should be much lower. If one
takes a safety factor of 10 (Asante-Duah, 1998 has suggested
a factor of safety of 10 or higher), it gives an acceptable level
of 20g/m3 for BSF

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Review of Criterion on Area-Classification for Existing AAQS

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Proposed Change
In view of the discussions, it is recommended that there is no
need to have area-based classification for air quality standards.
However, for sensitive areas, generic or blanket air quality
standard may be provided for PM, SO2, NO2. However without
clearly understanding the sensitivity of the area that needs to be
protected standards cannot be provided for specific pollutants.
For example, if a sensitive area shows sensitivity to contaminant
‘a’, it is only the contaminant ‘a’ for which more stringent
standard is required and standard for other contaminants need not
be redefined. It is recommended that all sensitive areas may be
identified and to ensure full protection, there is a need to
prescribe pollutants) specific standards specific to a sensitive area

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