Use of Remote Sensing Data to Identify Air Pollution Signatures in India

TL;DR

This paper leverages Sentinel-5P satellite data to analyze and cluster air pollution signatures across Indian states and districts, aiding in identifying pollution sources and trends for better policy targeting.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach using satellite-derived multi-pollutant data to cluster Indian regions based on pollution signatures and trends.

Findings

Distinct pollution clusters identified across India

Regional pollution trends characterized over time

Satellite data effectively captures pollution variability

Abstract

Air quality has major impact on a country's socio-economic position and identifying major air pollution sources is at the heart of tackling the issue. Spatially and temporally distributed air quality data acquisition across a country as varied as India has been a challenge to such analysis. The launch of the Sentinel-5P satellite has helped in the observation of a wider variety of air pollutants than measured before at a global scale on a daily basis. In this chapter, spatio-temporal multi pollutant data retrieved from Sentinel-5P satellite is used to cluster states as well as districts in India and associated average monthly pollution signature and trends depicted by each of the clusters are derived and presented.The clustering signatures can be used to identify states and districts based on the types of pollutants emitted by various pollution sources.