Emission Inventory of Vehicular Pollutants of Assam and Its Trend Analysis

Gautam Dutta, and Kalita Kalyan

Department of Mechanical Engineering Department, Assam Engineering College, Gauhati University, Guwahati, Assam, India

Abstract: Vehicles are a major source of air pollution in Assam as well as most of Indian cities. The rapid urbanization and industrialization in India have resulted in tremendous rise of vehicular population and its density. As a result, there is traffic congestion causing reduction in speed and more fuel consumption. So, air quality in Indian cities is degrading in an alarming rate. Central and state governments have taken various steps to improve the standard of air quality. Accurate estimation of emission inventory is very much essential for planning to reduce emissions to meet air quality goals and tracking progress of its mitigation measures. In this paper, an attempt has been made to estimate vehicular emission inventories of Assam with estimation based on total fuel consumption, emission factor and total number of vehicles registered in different categories. The method used in the present work is comprised of a combination of two different approaches viz. Top-down and bottom up approaches. It is revealed that CO, HC, PM, SO_2, CO₂ almost doubled during last five years. The maximum growth rate was found in case of CO, CH₄ and HC and it was minimum for NO_x. The total pollution was highest from trucks (@65%) followed by two wheelers (@11%). Diesel consumption was much more than total petrol consumption. Emission of pollutants viz. HC, CO and CH₄ are significantly higher from petrol vehicles but pollutants viz. CO₂, NO_x and SO₂ are significantly higher in case of diesel vehicles.

 Key words: Vehicular, emission, inventory, Assam.