Gridded 1 km × 1 km emission inventory for paddy stubble burning emissions over north-west India constrained by measured emission factors of 77 VOCs and district-wise crop yield data

Ashish Kumar; Haseeb Hakkim; Baerbel Sinha; Vinayak Sinha

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.148064

Gridded 1 km × 1 km emission inventory for paddy stubble burning emissions over north-west India constrained by measured emission factors of 77 VOCs and district-wise crop yield data

Sci Total Environ. 2021 Oct 1:789:148064. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.148064. Epub 2021 May 27.

Authors

Ashish Kumar¹, Haseeb Hakkim¹, Baerbel Sinha¹, Vinayak Sinha²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali, Sector 81, SAS Nagar, Manauli PO, Mohali, Punjab 140306, India.
² Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali, Sector 81, SAS Nagar, Manauli PO, Mohali, Punjab 140306, India. Electronic address: vsinha@iisermohali.ac.in.

PMID: 34323834
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.148064

Abstract

Every year in the post-monsoon season, ~1.7 billion tons of paddy stubble is burnt openly in the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) producing persistent smog and air quality deterioration that affects the entire IGP. Information concerning the identity, amounts and spatial distribution of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which drive ozone and aerosol formation is still largely unknown as existing global emission inventories have poor VOC speciation and rely on limited satellite overpasses for mapping burnt areas. Here, emission factors (EFs) of 77 VOCs were measured from paddy fire smoke and combined with 1 km × 1 km stubble burning activity constrained by annual crop production yields and detected fires to compile a new gridded emission inventory for 2017. Our results reveal a large source of acetaldehyde (37.5 ± 9.6 Ggy^-1), 2-furaldehyde (37.1 ± 12.5 Ggy^-1), acetone (34.7 ± 13.6 Ggy^-1), benzene (9.9 ± 2.8 Ggy^-1) and isocyanic acid (0.4 ± 0.2 Ggy^-1) that are not accounted for by existing emission inventories (GFED, GFAS, FINv2.1). During October-November, these emissions (346 ± 65 Ggy^-1 NMVOC; 38 ± 8 Ggy^-1 NO_x; 16 ± 4 Ggy^-1 NH₃; 129 ± 9 Ggy^-1 PM_2.5; 22,125 ± 3674 Ggy^-1 GHG CO₂ equivalents) are more than 20 times larger than corresponding emissions from traffic and municipal waste burning over north-west India. Mitigation of this source alone can therefore yield massive air-quality climate co-benefits for more than 500 million people.

Keywords: Biomass burning; Emission factors; Furaldehyde; Gridded emission inventory; VOC speciation.