Early signs of worsening air emerge in Northeast India
The Hindu
Except Guwahati, the other cities in the Northeast have low annual PM2.5 levels
Air quality in India’s northeast States is worsening and while still much better than pollution hotspots in other parts of the country, appear to be under threat by the same sources — vehicles, industry and urbanisation — that have soiled the air elsewhere, according to an analysis of air quality by the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment.
So far air pollution is largely seen as a crisis of the Indo Gangetic plains, particularly in winter when Delhi and several cities in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana find themselves in lists of the world’s most polluted cities. Air in the northeast States, in the popular imagination, is less befouled due to the region's topography that is less conducive to fossil-fuel led industrialisation and geographical isolation.
CSE analysed concentrations of PM 2.5, particulate matter sized 2.5 micron or less, from January 1, 2019 to December 7, 2021 in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Nagaland, Mizoram, and Arunachal Pradesh over annual and seasonal periods. They relied on live data available from seven continuous ambient air quality monitoring stations (CAAQMS) spread across six cities in five States: two stations in Guwahati and one station each in Shillong (Meghalaya), Agartala (Tripura), Kohima (Nagaland), Aizawl (Mizoram) and Naharlagun (Arunachal Pradesh).
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