Outdoor air pollution in India is not only an urban problem
Ravishankara, A.R.; David, L.M.; Pierce, J.R.; Venkataraman, C.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 117(46): 28640-28644
2020
ISSN/ISBN: 1091-6490 PMID: 33139542 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2007236117Document Number: 381796
Urban outdoor air pollution in the developing world, mostly due to particulate matter with diameters smaller than 2.5 µm (PM2.5), has been highlighted in recent years. It leads to millions of premature deaths. Outdoor air pollution has also been viewed mostly as an urban problem. We use satellite-derived demarcations to parse India's population into urban and nonurban regions, which agrees with the census data. We also use the satellite-derived surface PM2.5 levels to calculate the health impacts in the urban and nonurban regions. We show that outdoor air pollution is just as severe in nonurban regions as in the urban regions of India, with implications to monitoring, regulations, health, and policy.