Lahore Ambient Air Pollution: Key Roots and Implications for Public Health - A Detailed Overview

Air pollution is one of the most critical environmental issue in the developing world. Greenhouse gases significantly contributed in the elevated global temperature. The emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels proved to be a major reason behind deteriorated environment of the metropolitan cities of the developing countries. The case of Lahore is no exception. It is a second most populous city of Pakistan which houses 11.1 million individuals. The study in 2015 showed that the polluted compound in the air such as particulate matter 2.5 (PM_2.5) was nine times more than the standards of WHO. The considerable sources of PM_2.5 are transportation related emissions, coal-fired power plants, household solid fuel burning, industrial emissions and open biomass burning. The crowded urban cities are demanding rapid urbanization fueled by massive infrastructure investment and followed by enormous environmental degradation. This situation give rise to inadequate public transport system which is a reason of higher rate of car ownerships increasing at 17% per annum.

The effects of the air pollution are very disastrous. The pollutants which cause fatal public health problems are (PM₁₀, PM_2.5), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), Sulphur dioxide (SO₂) and ozone (O₃). The major source of these pollutants are anthropogenic activities such as emissions from automobiles, industrial plants, brick kilns and stubble burning. Loss of the lung capacity, asthma, emphysema, lung cancer, asthma and reduced life span are the common health problems caused by air pollution. The smog episodes in urban cities are reason of variety of inflammatory diseases. There is a strong need to monitor ambient air quality in order to protect the human health and the environment in a region. The monitoring of air quality provides the information to formulate the air quality standards and objectives for various air pollutants in the air. This study was conducted to investigate the major causes of air pollution in order to provide the global scientific community and policy makers with the much-required scientific data to curb the emissions. This is a novel study since it just not identifies the sources but also tries to present a detailed – qualitative and quantitative - account of the associated impacts experienced – or expected to experience in future – by the citizens.