Commonwealth Games 2010 to go green

Pune: For the first time in India, such an event will also be tagged for its relationship to the environment. This will be in the form of a unique experiment to forecast air pollution levels for the next day that will be conducted by the Pune-based Indian Institute of Tropical Meterology (IITM).

“The IITM has developed the System of Air Pollution Forecasting and Research (SAFAR-2010) to predict the level of air pollutants and showcase the current level of air quality during the Commonwealth Games.

This is in accordance with its motto of ‘Green Games’ with a commitment to ensure that the negative environmental impact of the event is minimised,” said Swati Basu, Advisor, Central Ministry of Earth Sciences.

In the recent past, only a few developed countries have demonstrated the strength to develop this kind of system during major games such as during the Olympic Games in Beijing, China and Melbourne, Australia.

“SAFAR will provide and display the information on air quality on real time basis (hourly) and forecast the future level of pollution 24 hours in advance at various key locations of CWG-2010 through wireless true colour digital display panels.

The real time and forecasting will include the following air pollutants: ozone, oxides of nitrogen (Nox), carbon monoxide (CO), particulate matters (PM2.5, PM10), black carbon and benzene,” Basu elaborated.

The SAFAR system is planned to be established at least 3 to 4 months in advance and is expected to help and guide IITM in planning the mitigation strategies to identify the major sources of air pollutants.

“This system will help to plan the air quality management system. It will tell us the quality of the air we will be breathing during the CWG-2010 and also the impact of various environmental friendly steps we are committed to take up for betterment of air quality,” Gufran Beig, Programme Director at IITM, said.

Explaining the process of air pollution forecasting, he said that a control room would be set up at the main CWG venue.

Data would be transferred from ten different locations to the control room. Using this data, figures for the pollution level would be calculated.

“The programme aims at understanding the immediate health hazards due to pollution during the CWG. This would help take suitable systematic measures to avoid the health hazards,” Beig added. A host of IITM scientists, including its director B N Goswami, Suvarna Fadnavis, Kaushar Ali, K Sahu, S Ghude and H R Trimbake, are involved in the project.

According to Beig, such a project was important considering that exposure to air pollutants leads to problems such as increased respiratory symptoms, hospitalisation for heart and lung diseases, and even premature death.

As to the reason why the IITM has been chosen to undertake this project, Beig replied: “There are many other institutes that can conduct air pollution check-ups but only the IITM has the expertise to predict air pollution levels. A vital numerical model, called the atmospheric chemistry and transport, is available only with us.”

The benefits of SAFAR-2010 include getting help in better planning of air quality management system and to release advisory for health, informing about the quality of air that people are breathing today and likely to breathe tomorrow, advising the civic body in selecting pathways for the next day to avoid immediate exposure to bad air and checking the impact of various environmental friendly steps on air quality.

The model takes into account data like temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction and statistical data from various ministries like transport on the number of vehicles in a particular city or district.

Estimates are also made from information about the amount of petrol or diesel burnt and the date of manufacture of the vehicles. “This model can then be replicated for all the cities of India,” Beig said.