Air quality assessment along Dhanbad - Jharia road.

Road ambient air pollution status along Dhanbad - Jharia road is studied and presented in this article. The selection of this area is made considering the importance of the road in Dhanbad district and the nature of activities taking place along the road, which reflect that the portion of road upto Dhansar can be considered as having commercial areas on both sides and that from Dhansar to Jharia as having industrial areas on both sides. For the assessment of the ambient air quality along the road monitoring is done at the following five locations: Indian School of Mines (ISM), main gate; Bankmore; Dhansar police check post; Dhansar opencast project agent office and a residential house beside the Rajapur opencast project. The location of ISM, main gate is specially chosen as this represents a commercial shopping complexes and the situation can be compared with that at Bankmore. Monitoring of ambient air quality is done following the standard procedure prescribed in IS: 5182. In addition the concentration of lead, zinc, copper, iron, manganese, cadmium metals in SPM is also monitored. The ambient air quality is monitored in the months of September and November 1999, respectively, to represent monsoon and winter seasons. The SPM concentration observed at all the five locations in the winter season is more than the permissible limits for commercial and industrial areas. However, in the monsoon season, the SPM concentration is higher than the permissible limit at the two commercial locations, i.e., ISM gate and Bankmore, while it is less than the prescribed limit for industrial areas at the remaining three locations. At the ISM gate and Bankmore the SPM generation is mainly by vehicular traffic while at other three locations it was in addition due to mining and other activities.