City’s air quality drops to ‘poor’

After the city witnessed 11 days of ‘satisfactory’ to ‘moderate’ air quality, air pollution increased on Thursday as the pollutant-measuring indicator entered the

After the city witnessed 11 days of ‘satisfactory’ to ‘moderate’ air quality, air pollution increased on Thursday as the pollutant-measuring indicator entered the ‘poor’ category.

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According to System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), air quality index (AQI) in Mumbai was 202 (poor), with Bandra-Kurla Complex being the most polluted location with an AQI of 305 (very poor). Places such as Mazagaon (270), Andheri (227), Malad (223), and Navi Mumbai (209) recorded ‘poor’ air quality on Thursday, while remaining locations witnessed ‘moderate’ air pollution levels.

AQI was 215 (poor), according to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), based on air quality data from nine monitoring stations in Mumbai.

SAFAR and CPCB categorise AQI for pollutants in 0-50 range as good; 51-100 as satisfactory; 101-200 as moderate; 201-300 as poor; 301-400 as very poor; and above 400 as severe.

Over the past four days, AQI gradually witnessed a rise as minimum temperatures saw a fall in the city, researchers said.

“After witnessing its cleanest November air owing to a host of weather systems in the Arabian Sea, even December has been a low pollution month for Mumbai as AQI has remained in moderate category. However, as temperatures are declining under winter conditions, the carrying capacity of air pollutants is increasing, allowing the formation of a boundary layer of pollutants closer to the surface,” said Gufran Beig, project director, SAFAR. “Thanks to meteorological factors, air pollution in Mumbai in 2019 has been much less than previous years.”

SAFAR predicted that air quality was likely to bounce back to ‘moderate’ category on Friday with a predicted AQI of 192.