The air quality of the city improved substantially to “good” category on Monday from “poor” levels on Saturday and Sunday, following rain over the last two days, as per official data.
The contribution of stubble burning in neighbouring States to PM2.5 — a chief pollutant — in Delhi was estimated to have fallen to 1% on Monday, down from 14% on Saturday, according to government-run monitoring agency — System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR).
Also, the number of fire counts in the region fell to 170 on Monday from 1,572 on Saturday, as per SAFAR.
“Local land surfaces are wet and so dust re-suspension is minimum, which leads to low PM10. Presence of western disturbance has led to scattered rainfall over north India, leading to low biomass burning. This condition improved AQI with low PM2.5. Moist surfaces inhibit re-suspension of dust which will keep AQI in good for next 24 hours and after that AQI will degrade to satisfactory for Delhi,” SAFAR said.
