Original Articles
Simerpreet Kaur, Jatinder K Ka
Abstract
Punjab, with four major cities viz., Amritsar, Ludhiana, Khanna and Gobindgarh are major contributors of outdoor air pollution among all Indian states. Due to bad quality of inhalable fraction of air, consequence of asthma cases among schoolchildren in Punjab has been increasing at alarming rate. To determine the load of roadside urban suspended particulate matter in Amritsar city, using high volume sampler and metrological parameters were procured using underground site on same days of sampling period. This is gravimetrical analysis of suspended particulate matter study over winter season in six sampling sites of urban Amritsar, city. The data was analyzed using Pearson correlation matrix to know the relation of suspended particulate matter with climatic conditions where P ≤ 0.05 was considered as level significance in the present study. The results indicate high content of mean particulate matter (μg/m3) in order of Ram bag site > Railway station > Crystal chowk > Bhandari bridge > Ranjit avenue > Garden colony sampling sites of present study. The temperature was found to be positively correlated to content of particulate matter as of increase in asthmatic symptoms especially, in winter season. Epidemiologic studies reported high risk of asthma in Amritsar, city Punjab. Increase in continuous emission of automobile exhaust, traffic jams, construction demolition has markedly raised the prevalence of childhood asthma. The content of suspended particulate matter and its relation with temperature indicates significant risk factor for exacerbating asthmatic mortalities.