Unequal Geographic Coverage of Air-Quality Monitoring across Wealth Groups in Delhi

Saishha Vikram Agarwal

No 9jh3z_v2, SocArXiv from Center for Open Science

Abstract: Air-quality monitoring networks are the basis for measuring and reporting urban pollution, but their value depends in part on how well they represent the populations they are intended to serve. The study examines whether Delhi's air-quality monitoring network provides equal geographic coverage across wealth groups. It combines the locations of current air-quality monitoring stations with the Relative Wealth Index (RWI), which provides estimates of relative wealth for small geographic areas. Delhi's population is divided into five population-weighted wealth groups, and the distance from each location to the nearest monitor is calculated. Residents in the poorest wealth quintile live, on average, 7.58 km from the nearest monitor, compared with 4.69 km for the richest quintile. The difference of 2.89 km is positive even after accounting for spatial clustering (95% spatial-block bootstrap interval: 1.60 to 4.28 km). Monitoring coverage is also higher among the highest-wealth residents: 45.7% of the poorest quintile lives within 5 km of a monitor compared with 67.3% of the richest quintile. The results show that Delhi's monitoring network provides unequal geographic coverage across wealth groups. The study contributes theoretically by framing monitoring-network representativeness as an equity question. Practically, it contributes by suggesting that future network expansion consider population-weighted accessibility and coverage of lower-wealth populations along with conventional technical siting criteria. The results do not, however, show that monitors were deliberately placed to favor wealthier areas, nor do they establish that greater distance necessarily causes less accurate pollution measurement.

Date: 2026-10-10
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:socarx:9jh3z_v2

DOI: 10.31235/osf.io/9jh3z_v2

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