Review Paper by Molina and Molina

Ayush Munjal
19D070014

The world population is growing rapidly, with more growth in

urban regions. It is expected that by 2030 almost all of the
population growth will be in the urban areas. This significant
growth creates major environmental concerns. This paper,
Megacities and Atmospheric Pollution, addresses the impact of
this growth on Earth’s atmosphere. This paper examines nine
major megacities of different countries. The most significant factor
for urban development is the large increase in population. An
increase in income is also one of the major reasons people shift
from the countryside to the city for jobs, education, better health
services, etc.

Kuznets Curve demonstrates that as the per capita income of a

nation increases, the environmental quality first deteriorates, and
after a point, it improves, thus leading to an inverted U shape
relationship. While transportation is the leading source of air
pollution in most cities, it is also one of the most important
sources of the economy of the country. Urbanization and
industrialization have severe consequences on Global warming.

A city’s ecological footprint is the biologically productive area

required to produce the resources used and to assimilate the
wastes generated by a defined population at a specific standard
of living. EF (in hectares/person) has increased at rates much
higher than projected rates creating an unsustainable situation.
Also, rich countries add much more to consumption than poor
countries. Some developments that can be applied to reduce this
growth include air quality management, improving the quality of
technologies used, and improvement in data collection.

Major air pollutants in megacities include Ozone, Sulfur Dioxide,

Nitric Oxide, Nitrogen Dioxide, Carbon Monoxide, Volatile Organic
compounds, and Hydrocarbons. At the same time, some pollution
control methods are easy, like shifting to slow sulfur fuels to
reduce the concentration of SO2 and SO42- implemented around
the 1950s. While treating high Ozone concentration is not this
simple. All air quality models require spatially and temporarily
resolved emissions data and meteorological data however this
data is generally not available easily, especially the latter data. So
special methods are implemented for the measurements of such
data, which include Regular hourly measurements of PM10, O3,
NO, CO, and NO2, and Remote sensing of emissions from
individual vehicles.

A large number of pollutants can cause effects health, visibility,

and regional climate change. The health effects depend on the
intensity, duration of exposure, age, and health condition of the
individual. In Delhi, more than a 20% increase was found in
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and acute coronary events
due to increased air pollution. PM2.5 are the significant pollutants
related to visibility impairment, with Urban haze as one of the
most common effects. Atmospheric deposition of nitrogen leads to
over-fertilization of soils, lakes, and streams leading to change in
the productivity of the region. Nitrogen deposition also affects the
ocean due to phytoplankton blooms. Further, Ozone is also
known to damage crop yields and vegetation.
Emissions from megacities also affect the regional climate
adversely. Fine PM has a direct effect on short wavelength
radiations by scattering and/or absorbing solar radiation. High PM
levels also affect precipitation by increasing cloud lifetimes and
decreasing rain and snow. Past data has also observed that air
pollution is transported over long distances, like from North
America to Europe.

Air quality management is divided broadly into four steps: The first
step involves identifying the existing air quality and exploring the
causes of the same. Now, a policy is formulated to solve these
issues. Even after the initial problem has been resolved, the
control method should still be applied. The development of such
policies requires detailed information about the air quality, i.e., the
principal source of pollution and its location. Different monitoring
systems are employed the monitoring air quality. It is done to
examine excessive pollutant levels, compare compliance with the
standards, identify the source contributions, determine exposures,
etc. Which management technique is the most important depends
on the objective for which the measurements are to be conducted.
Emission inventories monitor emission rates from different
sources. They apply an emission factor which represents the
mass of emissions per unit of activity times the activity factor.

Major strategies for emission control are technology-based

regulatory mandates on processes, fuels, etc., Economic
incentives, emission taxes, and Implementing policies like land
usage and infrastructure development. Mostly the effective air
quality strategies use a combination of these strategies along with
public awareness campaigns and enforcement through incentives
to achieve their goal.

There has been great progress in the last few years to counter
increasing air pollution. However, there are still many areas and
cities that require attention. It has been observed over the past
years that there is no single strategy for air pollution control, and it
depends vastly on the city. An important observation that has
emerged in the last few years is that air pollution management
requires a combination of different strategies, like Technological,
economic, political, and social.