Seasonal Variation of Air Quality and CAQI at Tummalapalle Uranium Mining Site and Surrounding Villages

Abstract

The air quality levels of Tummalapalle Uranium mining site is studied using Combined Air Quality Index (CAQI) and Z – score. Samples of PM10, TSP, SOx and NOx were collected by installing high volume samplers at Ten locations of Tummalapalle Uranium Mining site and its surrounding villages. The locations are selected based on the wind roses and these are classified as core zone, buffer zone – 1 and buffer zone – 2, based on radial distance from the mining site. The samples were collected twice a month during November - 2010 to February – 2012, of all the seasons i.e., winter, summer and monsoon. The CAQI has been estimated to assess the air pollution in ten selected sampling locations using concentrations of four common pollutants (PM10, TSP, SOx and NOx). The spatial concentration distributions of pollutants were standardized by means of Z - scores to avoid any effects of unity scale on the distance measurements. These Z – scores are used to assess the air quality in three spatial zones (core zone, buffer zone – 1 and buffer zone – 2). The evaluated CAQI values for all the three seasons are varying in the range of 20–50 at all the sampling locations. The CAQI values indicate moderate air pollution at the locations of UCIL–Mining site and Tummalapalle during winter and summer seasons. This is also supported by the high Z–scores obtained for the core zone containing these two locations.