Assessment of indoor air quality and housing, household and health characteristics in densely populated urban slums

Abhay Anand and Harish C. Phuleria ()
Additional contact information
Abhay Anand: Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
Harish C. Phuleria: Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, 2022, vol. 24, issue 10, No 19, 11929-11952

Abstract: Abstract This study provides the first quantitative assessment of seasonal variation in indoor PM2.5 in the high-air pollution risk and densely populated slums in Mumbai, India and estimates the contributions of indoor and outdoor sources to it. Indoor and outdoor 24-h averaged gravimetric PM2.5 (nind = 20 homes, nout = 10 days) was measured during summer (May–June 2016) and winter (January–March 2017). During the summer, real-time PM2.5, Lung Deposited Surface Area and Black Carbon were also measured (nind = 8, nout = 8). Additionally, detailed questionnaire surveys on housing, household and health characteristics were conducted in ~ 500 homes of the seven Mumbai slums. More than 60% of the homes in slums had no separate kitchen or cross-ventilation, especially in low socioeconomic status homes. Respiratory and cardiovascular diseases were reported in 15% and 6% of the households, respectively, with a higher prevalence in homes burning mosquito coils. Significantly higher indoor PM2.5 was observed during winter (111 ± 30 µg/m3) than summer (36 ± 12 µg/m3). Although liquefied petroleum gas was the only indoor cooking fuel reported, the winter-time indoor levels were similar or higher than the concentrations observed in other urban slum homes using biomass fuels for cooking. This could be attributed to the alarmingly high winter-time ambient PM2.5 (192 ± 80 µg/m3) and its larger contribution to indoor PM2.5 (81%). On the other hand, the contribution of indoor and local outdoor sources was significantly higher for Lung Deposited Surface Area (33%) and Black Carbon (43%) compared to PM2.5 (19%), which are more fine and toxicity-relevant particle metrics. Graphic abstract

Keywords: Indoor air pollution; Urban slums; PM2.5; BC; LDSA; Questionnaire survey (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10668-021-01923-x Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:endesu:v:24:y:2022:i:10:d:10.1007_s10668-021-01923-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10668

DOI: 10.1007/s10668-021-01923-x

Access Statistics for this article

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development is currently edited by Luc Hens

More articles in Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().