Cause Effect Modelling of Crop Residue Burning on Urban School Children Health

Abstract

Clean air is a need of each human being to survive on planet earth. Due to rapid growth in modernization and life style, the ambient air is getting polluted due to mixture of hazardous substances such as toxic gases and fine suspended particulate matter having size several times lesser than the thickness of human hair. The exposure to these substances for a short or long duration caused chronic disorders such as asthma, shortness of breath and reduction in working capacity of respiratory system. According to previous studies, exposure to increased level of particulate matter having size less than 10µgm-3 in ambient air is responsible to affect the health of inhabitants of all age groups. The effects on children are more severe than other age groups due to their body structure and constraints. The children are unaware of their surrounding environment and their organs are under development. Their respiration system is unable to trap these substances due to weak defense system. Particulate matter is generated by improper combustion of fuels or garbage in ambient air. Typically, there are number of sources that are responsible. Agriculture crop residue burning is identified as the second largest source of air contamination in Punjab state (India) that is responsible for releasing of coarse and fine particulate matter in the air. Rice and wheat crop is the main cyclic crop of this area. As per NASA s recent evidences, dense plums are identified in the area that is hypothesized to affect the lung capacity of human subjects. To study the effect of ACRB on human subjects, three schools (in Amritsar, Ludhiana and Mandi Gobindgarh) were selected in the region. Initially, 150 healthy human subjects (50 school going children in age group 10 to 14 years per school) were enrolled in the study. The repeated sampling of particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) and pulmonary function test (FVC, FEV1, PEF, FEF25-75% ) were done for three years from August 2013 to July 2016 using Aerosol spectrometer and spirometer.