Environmental Monitoring of Smog in Lahore Metropolitan Using GIS Technology

Abstract

Smog, a combination of polluted gasses or smoke with fog, brings a harmful breathing environment that mostly exists during the pre-winter season in Lahore. The smog episodes are prevailing over the city which are getting aggregated by smoky fumes, impurities, and dust particles. Severe smog episodes were observed over Lahore mainly during November and December 2019, resulting in adverse environmental conditions e.g., eye irritation, breathing difficulty, and creating very low visibility in and around Lahore. This study is based on eighty-five sample sites from all over Lahore city, to measure the Particulate Matter during smog season. In this study, the risk zones are demarcated based on land use and land covers during pre-winter seasons. It has been revealed through geospatial technology and the evaluation of weather data that local pollution has a greater contribution towards deteriorating the quality of air as compared to the contributions which are regionally active during the smog season. Spatial dispersion of smog has shown the local industrial and vehicular emissions as the major contributor of smog rather regional diffusion of pollutants.