Estimation of Air Pollutant Dispersion Levels Using AERMOD: A Case Study in Ambattur, Chennai, India

The present study is proposed to determine the possibility of using AERMOD (Gaussian dispersion air quality model) to estimate the air pollutant levels of Ambattur Municipality, Chennai. Four main pollutants PM10, CO, SO2, and NOx were considered in this study. The metrological data were obtained from CPCB for comparison with the model's output. The primary pollution sources used in this study were classified as residential, commercial, traffic, and industrial sources. Emission characteristics were taken as source input to estimate the pollutant concentration from the study area based on the Top-Down Approach method (TDA). Results clearly show that the pollutant dispersion concentrations retrieved from the model were much lower than the measured values in all parameters. The values obtained from the model were 5.14% to 76.88% of the measurement values. This could be due to an incomplete source account. However, the model can be used for knowing the pollutant dispersion of the urban area.