Grantee Research Project Results
Final Report: Impacts of Household Sources on Outdoor Pollution at Village and Regional Scales in India
EPA Grant Number: R835425Title: Impacts of Household Sources on Outdoor Pollution at Village and Regional Scales in India
Investigators: Smith, Kirk R. , Bond, Tami C. , Edwards, Rufus D. , Seinfeld, John , Arora, Narendra
Institution: University of California - Berkeley , The INCLEN trust , University of California - Irvine , California Institute of Technology
Current Institution: University of California - Berkeley , California Institute of Technology , The INCLEN trust , University of California - Irvine
EPA Project Officer: Keating, Terry
Project Period: April 1, 2014 through March 31, 2017 (Extended to March 31, 2019)
Project Amount: $1,495,454
RFA: Measurements and Modeling for Quantifying Air Quality and Climatic Impacts of Residential Biomass or Coal Combustion for Cooking, Heating, and Lighting (2012) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Air Quality and Air Toxics , Climate Change , Tribal Environmental Health Research , Air
Objective:
This research quantifies the contribution of households to ambient air pollution in North India by (1) updating and improving existing emissions inventories through activity-based modeling at high temporal and spatial resolution, (2) providing field-based emissions of SVOCs and other ozone precursors to, for the first time, model the contribution of household air pollution to regional secondary particle formation; and (3) monitoring rural ambient and near-home concentrations of and personal exposures to PM2.5. Modeling efforts will enable manipulation of various sources and emission rates, across a variety of relevant policy scenarios, enabling estimation of how certain initiatives may impact air pollution at varying scales.
This project leverages a multi-year collaboration between University of California Berkeley and INCLEN, the International Clinical Epidemiology Network (New Delhi, India). INCLEN runs a large demographic and environmental surveillance site ~75 kilometers south of Delhi; their activities span over 50 villages covering approximately 200,000 individuals. While relatively close to Delhi, most households in the area rely on brushwood and dung as primary household fuels. The entire region is prone to low, ground-level inversions in the winter, resulting in especially high PM concentrations between November and February.
Study findings have been disseminated to local stakeholders, policy makers, members of relevant ministries, environmental health practitioners, and other researchers through journal articles.
Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):
Exposure to household air pollution (HAP) results in between 3 and 4 million deaths per year. In India, the 2018 Global Burden of Disease exercise estimated 480,000 deaths attributable to exposure to PM2.5 from HAP. An additional burden is imposed by the contribution of household air pollution to ambient air pollution, especially in India, where households are estimated to be the single largest contributor to ambient air pollution (~ 30%). The work performed as part of this grant sought to estimate the impact of household air pollution on ambient air quality by better characterization of emissions from commonly used cookstoves, which were used to inform and update emissions inventories, which in turn were used to model the contribution of household air pollution to secondary particle formation. Finally, as part of the project, we measured ambient concentrations of PM2.5 in rural Haryana; despite many ambient monitoring stations deployed throughout India, none are in rural areas. We also evaluated kitchen concentrations of and personal exposures to air pollution in a village with few non-cooking sources (i.e. isolated from roads, industry, etc.).
We first collected emissions samples from a variety of stove and fuel combinations common to North India. These included standard cooking stoves, or chulhas, fueled by wood or dung and typical simmering stoves, known as angithi, fueled by dung. Chemical analysis of both gas-phase and particle phase pollutants was performed.
In the particle phase, we identified a number of novel and previously identified chemical compounds. The angithi with dung had the highest rate of and most complex emissions, followed by dung and brushwood in the chulha, respectively. See Fleming et al (2018a) for a detailed description of methods and findings. the gas phase, CO, CO2, and 76 volatile organic compounds were quantified. Dung fuel and use of an angithi lead to significantly higher emissions of most VOCs. See Fleming et al (2018b) for detailed methods and findings.
The elaborated emissions served as an input to an existing emissions inventory maintained by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). The residential sector in the inventory was replaced with a service-based representation calibrated with census data and updated with the latest published emission factors, including reports from all investigators funded under this RFA. This inventory was deployed in an atmospheric model and used to estimate the amount of secondary organic aerosol in our study area arising from the residential sector. The impact of residential emissions on PM2.5 concentration ranges from 27% in our study area to about 10% in New Delhi, approximately 75 km from our study area.
We also set up three ambient air quality monitors in rural Haryana, providing some of the only continuous measurements of ambient PM2.5 in rural areas of India. Ambient concentrations of air pollution in the village where we did most of our measurement exceeded Indian PM2.5 NAAQS (40microgram/m3 annual average) by between 4 and 5 fold on average, with even higher exceedances in the winter months. 24-hour area measurements, made in courtyards where cooking occurs, were extremely high (on average ~ 630 microgram/m3), as were personal exposures measured on the primary cook (on average ~ 480 microgram/m3).
References:
- Bond, T. C., Streets, D. G., Yarber, K. F., Nelson, S. M., Woo, J.H., and Klimont, Z.: A technology-based global inventory of black and organic carbon emissions from combustion, J. Geo- phys. Res., 109, D14203, 2004.
- Jayarathne, T., Stockwell, C. E., Bhave, P. V., Praveen, P. S., Rathnayake, C. M., Islam, Md. R., Panday, A. K., Adhikari, S., Ma- harjan, R., Goetz, J. D., DeCarlo, P. F., Saikawa, E., Yokelson, R. J., and Stone, E. A.: Nepal Ambient Monitoring and Source Testing Experiment (NAMaSTE): emissions of particu- late matter from wood- and dung-fueled cooking fires, garbage and crop residue burning, brick kilns, and other sources, At- mos. Chem. Phys., 18, 2259–2286, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp- 18-2259-2018, 2018.
- Sourangsu Chowdhury, Zoe A. Chafe, Ajay Pillarisetti, Jos Lelieveld, Sarath Guttikunda, and Sagnik Dey, 2019, The Contribution of Household Fuels to Ambient Air Pollution in India: A Comparison of Recent Estimates, Collaborative Clean Air Policy Centre, New Delhi, May, CCAPC/2019/01
Journal Articles on this Report : 1 Displayed | Download in RIS Format
Other project views: | All 11 publications | 5 publications in selected types | All 5 journal articles |
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Type | Citation | ||
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Conibear L, Butt E, Knote C, Lam N, Arnold S, Tibrewal K, Venkataraman C, Spracklen D, Bond T. A complete transition to clean household energy can save one-quarter of the healthy life lost to particulate matter pollution exposure in India. ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH 2020;15(9). |
R835425 (Final) R835423 (Final) |
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Supplemental Keywords:
Cookstoves, emissions, ambient air pollution, air pollution, IndiaRelevant Websites:
Collaborative Clean Air Policy Centre Exit
Progress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.
Project Research Results
- 2017 Progress Report
- 2016 Progress Report
- 2015 Progress Report
- 2014 Progress Report
- Original Abstract
5 journal articles for this project