Mapping of Air Pollution Using GIS: A Case Study of Hyderabad

Air Pollution is a highly intensifying issue in Hyderabad which is engulfing almost each and every corner of the city mostly due to the human activities like rapid industrialization, increased vehicular activity leading to enormous amount of fuel consumption and all other activities like construction, power generation and rather all other anthropogenic activities.High rise constructions affect the flow of the air quantity resulting in exchange of air and scattering or spreading of pollutants.Cities encourage high human exposure to the harmful substances due to the escalated population and continuous vehicular activity.Air pollution is today's major problem in our modern society and several factors concur to create unfavourable conditions for air pollutant dispersion.The effect of air pollution on public health and environment depends on several factors like chemical composition of a particular pollutant, the level of concentration, health status of individuals and time of exposure.Assessment of the impact of air quality effects on plants, animals, natural ecosystems, ecosystems and human health is important.Air quality management include monitoring and analysis of pollutant concentration, spatial distribution of pollutant concentration, and assessment of no. of environmental factors affected by air pollutants, preparation of health risk map.GIS is very useful for assessment of air quality.GIS has been used in the present study to map the various pollution data and analyze the areas which are most affected by what type of pollutant and subsequent conclusions drawn for making the Hyderabad a safe and sustainable area to live in.