Impacts of household sources on air pollution at village and regional scales in India
Authors: Rooney Brigitte , Zhao Ran , Wang Yuan , Bates Kelvin H. , Pillarisetti Ajay , Sharma Sumit , Kundu Seema , Bond Tami C. , Lam Nicholas L. , Ozaltun Bora , Xu Li , Goel Varun , Fleming Lauren T. , Weltman Robert , Meinardi Simone , Blake Donald R. , Nizkorodov Sergey A. , Edwards Rufus D. , Yadav Ankit , Arora Narendra K. , Smith Kirk R. , Seinfeld John H. 
Published: June 2019

Abstract. Approximately 3 billion people worldwide cook with solid fuels, such as wood,
charcoal, and agricultural residues. These fuels, also used for residential
heating, are often combusted in inefficient devices, producing carbonaceous
emissions. Between 2.6 and 3.8 million premature deaths occur as a result of
exposure to fine particulate matter from the resulting household air
pollution (Health Effects Institute, 2018a; World Health Organization, 2018).
Household air pollution also contributes to ambient air pollution; the
magnitude of this contribution is uncertain. Here, we simulate the
distribution of the two major health-damaging outdoor air pollutants
(PM2.5 and O3) using state-of-the-science emissions databases and
atmospheric chemical transport models to estimate the impact of household
combustion on ambient air quality in India. The present study focuses on New
Delhi and the SOMAARTH Demographic, Development, and Environmental
Surveillance Site (DDESS) in the Palwal District of Haryana, located about
80 km south of New Delhi. The DDESS covers an approximate population of
200 000 within 52 villages. The emissions inventory used in the present study
was prepared based on a national inventory in India (Sharma et al., 2015,
2016), an updated residential sector inventory prepared at the University of
Illinois, updated cookstove emissions factors from Fleming et al. (2018b),
and PM2.5 speciation from cooking fires from Jayarathne et al. (2018).
Simulation of regional air quality was carried out using the US
Environmental Protection Agency Community Multiscale Air Quality modeling
system (CMAQ) in conjunction with the Weather Research and Forecasting
modeling system (WRF) to simulate the meteorological inputs for CMAQ, and the
global chemical transport model GEOS-Chem to generate concentrations on the
boundary of the computational domain. Comparisons between observed and
simulated O3 and PM2.5 levels are carried out to assess overall
airborne levels and to estimate the contribution of household cooking
emissions. Observed and predicted ozone levels over New Delhi during
September 2015, December 2015, and September 2016 routinely exceeded the 8 h
Indian standard of 100 µg m−3, and, on occasion, exceeded
180 µg m−3. PM2.5 levels are predicted over the SOMAARTH
headquarters (September 2015 and September 2016), Bajada Pahari (a village in
the surveillance site; September 2015, December 2015, and September 2016),
and New Delhi (September 2015, December 2015, and September 2016). The
predicted fractional impact of residential emissions on anthropogenic
PM2.5 levels varies from about 0.27 in SOMAARTH HQ and Bajada Pahari to
about 0.10 in New Delhi. The predicted secondary organic portion of
PM2.5 produced by household emissions ranges from 16 % to 80 %.
Predicted levels of secondary organic PM2.5 during the periods studied
at the four locations averaged about 30 µg m−3, representing
approximately 30 % and 20 % of total PM2.5 levels in the rural
and urban stations, respectively.