Outdated data on air quality could mislead policy-makers and misinform the general public, even though real-time pollution data was being generated, experts have said.
On Thursday, the World Health Organisation (WHO) released its Global Urban Ambient Air Pollution Database (update 2016). While figures showed that Delhi’s PM2.5 levels had reduced since the last such listing in 2014, a closer look showed that the figures used were from 2013.
According to the WHO, data for the 3,000 cities covered in 103 countries ranged from 2010 to 2015.
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Lesley Onyon, the regional advisor for Occupational and Environmental Health at the WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia, said the updated database was a collection of the latest publicly available data on air pollution or provided by countries. The data measurement year for India ranges from 2012 to 2014, Ms. Onyon said.
“The WHO collected the data from publicly available sources for Delhi; these are stated in the database i.e. Open Government Data Platform India, Central Pollution Control Board India, Environmental Data Bank, Atmospheric Research 166: 223–232 (2015); U.S. Department of State and Mission Air Quality
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“For Delhi, the measured PM2.5 data was the most representative annual information for the latest year available i.e. 2013,” she said.
CPCB additional director and the head of the Air Laboratory, Dr. D. Saha, explained that though real-time data was used, it was for immediate local action.
“World over processed and validated data is used for regional, continental and global use, including for comparison of data at the international perspective. The measure initiatives on air pollution control is continuous process to achieve long term goals,” he said.
Experts wary
However, environmentalists didn’t seem to be buying it.
Anumita Roychowdhury, the head of the Centre for Science and Environment’s clean air programme, said that the analysed data available publicly was outdated, and “misleading for policy-makers as well as the public”.
She said the CPCB had not published air pollution data since 2012, even though real-time monitoring was being under by the National Air Quality Index protocol.
“For these cities, at least the local authorities and citizens can see the state of air quality. But, for other cities in the country, they are relying on 2012 data to form policy even today,” said Ms. Roychowdhury.
She said that the CPCB was using manual monitoring to compile data for its publication, as opposed to the real-time data available. This may lead to some delays in reporting, but it shouldn’t take three years, she said. “In 2016, we are relying on 2012 data,” said Ms. Roychowdhury, adding that a lot of money had been invested in monitoring but data capture had been sidelined.
Sunil Dahiya, an air pollution campaigner with Greenpeace, added that the fact that old data was being used was astonishing.
“There is real-time data available for 23 cities under NAQI, so it doesn’t make sense that there is such a long lag in reporting. The available data should be shared on a public platform to increase transparency,” said Mr. Dahiya.