GIS-based exposure assessment and characterization of particulate matter in a mining region in India
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GIS‑based exposure assessment and characterization of particulate matter in a mining region in India A. K. Patra1 · A. K. Gorai2 · Vaibhav R. Rengde1 · Yogesh Sharma2 Received: 10 June 2020 / Accepted: 6 October 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract The current study aims to characterize and estimate the particulate matter (PM) exposure level of the population near an opencast coal mine. PM concentrations of different sizes were monitored at 32 locations distributed uniformly in the study area for spatial profiling and at 1 location for analysing the temporal variations and characterization of dust. Health impacts of PM to nearby residents were estimated using the air quality index (AQI) values and were cross-validated using the health survey data. The monitoring results indicated that the 15 min average concentrations of PM10 and PM2.5 were 2.3–2.4 times of the corresponding 24 h National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) in all the monitoring stations. Low wind speed during monitoring campaign that resulted in little PM dispersion is suggested to be the reason for this. AQI levels at five villages surrounding the mine were “moderate to severe” during morning-hours that improved to “satisfactory to moderate” during day-time. Eye irritation and respiratory problems were the two most adverse effects experienced by the residents living nearby to the mine. The health survey data and the corresponding AQI values indicate that respiratory problem is well correlated with the AQI values. The dust contains mainly six major elements in the order of O > C > F > Si > Al > Fe > Ca, accounting for 95% of the weight percentages of the 20 elements for which the characterization was carried out. Keywords PM exposure · Opencast mine · Physicochemical characterization · Health survey · AQI
* A. K. Gorai [email protected] A. K. Patra [email protected] Vaibhav R. Rengde [email protected] Yogesh Sharma [email protected] 1
Department of Mining Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, West Bengal 721302, India
2
Department of Mining Engineering, National Institute of Technology Rourkela, Odisha 769008, India
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1 Introduction All the mining activities like drilling, blasting, transportation, movement of machineries on haul roads, removal of vegetation and top soil, overburden/mineral loading and unloading operations, material handling plants, and assembly and maintenance of heavy mining machineries in workshops generate huge amount particulate matter (PM) of different characteristics (Petavratzi, 2005). The particle size and characteristics are considered to be the important parameter in estimating the level of health hazards associated with PM inhalation as penetration into deeper parts of the lungs mainly depends on size and type of disease depends on the presence of elements in the dust. Few of the adverse health effects include pneumoconiosis, allergy, bronchitis, and cancer, (Anderson et al. 2012; Ling et al. 2009; Kim et al. 2008; H
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