Name:- Pratiksha Umesh Ramteke
Roll No:- 10018
Subject:- Research Methadology
Assignment
Pollution control in India…
1) India experiences some of the highest air pollution levels globally, with 13 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world. In this paper, we estimate the relationship between air pollution policies in India and mortality for people of all ages and all causes. We estimate the relationship between mortality and two major air pollution regulations, the Supreme Court Action Plan (SCAP) and the Catalytic Converter (CC) policy. Although data for mortality in India have improved over time, the annual average mortality for many districts is volatile, with many outliers and missing values. After addressing these measurement issues in a difference-in-differences setup, we do not find evidence that the policies were effective in significantly reducing mortality. In an effort to understand the potential benefits of reducing pollution levels in India, we investigate the association of different pollution types with mortality. This analysis relies upon relatively recent satellite data on PM2.5 levels in India. We examine this relationship for India for the first time, using a fixed effects model in an attempt to address issues of endogeneity and measurement error. We find that PM2.5 levels are positively associated with mortality, with a 10% increase in pollution conditionally associated with a 2.0% increase in the mortality rate.
2) Health and well-being during childhood are vital for shaping human capital accumulation. In India, exposure to pollution is increasingly one of the greatest public health challenges facing the country. In this context, we examine the impact of short-run exposure to air pollution on children’s academic performance. Using a large-scale dataset from 2008 to 2014, we causally estimate the impacts of contemporaneous air pollution on reading and math outcomes for children aged 5–16 years in rural India. To overcome endogeneity concerns, we use thermal inversions as an instrument for air pollution. We show that high levels of contemporaneous air pollution significantly reduce varying levels of reading outcomes by 1.11–2.39 percentage points and math outcomes by 0.53–1.90 percentage points, with girls and older children witnessing a larger decline. We find that school attendance is the main mechanism explaining these impacts.
3) Rampant use of plastics and inefficient waste management practices have led to the plastic waste being either piled up on dumpsites or finding their way into the open sea contributing to global problem of marine plastic pollution. The marine debris is a matter of grave concern both for marine biota and humans as marine animals habitat is turning into a plastic soup and humans face the risk of major health consequences after consuming plastic ingested sea food. There are also other economic losses like damaged ships, lost fish stocks, reduced tourism, depreciated coastal property values, etc. In India, plastic litter are documented to have caused serious damage to biodiversity in places like Cochin, Lakshadweep,Sutrapada,Vembanad Lake, Chilika Lake, Mandapam, Kilakkarai, Erwadi and Periyapattinam. There are also multiple cases of ingestion and entanglement from plastic debris leading to mortality of marine mammals and birds in the country. This study provides a descriptive picture of marine plastic pollution in India and the consequent future if no or limited action is taken. We have conducted stakeholder discussions and simulation analysis with data from secondary sources to arrive at the findings.
4) More than 660 million Indians breathe air that fails India’s National Ambient Air Quality Standards. Research suggests that meeting those standards would increase the average life expectancy in India by one year. Going further and meeting the international benchmarks of the World Health Organization is estimated to add 4.7 years to the life expectancy. Notwithstanding these large benefits, successfully implementing policies that deliver clean air has proved difficult. This paper reviews a breadth of empirical evidence from within and outside India, as well as new data from Delhi’s recent program to ration driving, and industrial emissions in Gujarat and Maharashtra. It distills three lessons for designing effective reforms: (a) ensuring that regulatory data is reliable and unbiased, (b) framing regulations that are both economically efficient and incentive-compatible across the range of actors affected, and (c) introducing a culture of piloting and evaluating new policies as a scientific route to achieving better outcomes. It makes the case that market-based policy instruments may solve several problems with existing regulation in India, and have the potential to reduce air pollution and cut compliance costs at the same time.
5) Using the most comprehensive data file ever compiled on air pollution, water pollution, environmental regulations, and infant mortality from a developing country, the paper examines the effectiveness of India’s environmental regulations. The air pollution regulations were effective at reducing ambient concentrations of particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide. The most successful air pollution regulation is associated with a modest and statistically insignificant decline in infant mortality. However, the water pollution regulations had no observable effect. Overall, these results contradict the conventional wisdom that environmental quality is a deterministic function of income and underscore the role of institutions and politics.
6) This paper provides a causal estimate of the contemporaneous impact of outdoor air pollution on cognitive and academic performance of children aged 8-11 years in India by combining satellite PM2.5 data with the two rounds of Indian Human Development Survey. Our identification strategy relies on the use of thermal inversions as an instrument that generates exogenous variation in the pollution levels. Results show that exposure to average PM2.5 concentrations in the past 12 months prior to the month of test taken by the children has a significant detrimental impact on their cognitive ability in India. Specifically, a 1 µg/m3 increase in average PM2.5 concentrations in the past 12 months decreases the math performance by 10-16 percentage points and the reading performance by 7-9 percentage points. We also find that there is a significant fall in the combined agestandardised cognitive score. The results imply that the cost of air pollution in India is much higher than estimated, and a narrow focus on health-related outcomes understate the magnitude of negative impact of pollution, as mental acuity is essential for higher productivity of children.
7) This paper reexamines empirical evidence on the effectiveness of environmental regulations in India from a recent study by Greenstone and Hanna (GH, 2014). GH report that air pollution control policies in India were effective in improving air quality but had a modest and statistically insignificant effect on infant mortality. These somewhat counterintuitive findings are likely to stem from the limited availability of ground-based air pollution data used in GH and the absence of critical meteorological confounders. I leverage recent advances in satellite technology and GH’s methodology to test the sensitivity of their findings to revised air pollution outcomes, an extended number of observations, and meteorological controls. Despite striking differences between the two datasets, reexamination using satellite-based data confirms the conclusions drawn from GH’s data. The effects of the policies are, however, substantially weaker. The paper urges further research on the effectiveness of environmental regulations in developing countries and the use of satellite imagery in the examination of this important question.
8) Fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 , diameter ≤2.5 μm) is implicated as the most health-damaging air pollutant. Large cohort studies of chronic exposure to PM 2.5 and mortality risk are largely confined to areas with low to moderate ambient PM 2.5 concentrations and posit log-linear exposure-response functions. However, levels of PM 2.5 in developing countries such as India are typically much higher, causing unknown health effects. Integrated exposure-response functions for high PM 2.5 exposures encompassing risk estimates from ambient air, secondhand smoke, and active smoking exposures have been posited. We apply these functions to estimate the future cause-specific mortality risks associated with population-weighted ambient PM 2.5 exposures in India in 2030 using Greenhouse Gas-Air Pollution Interactions and Synergies (GAINS) model projections. The loss in statistical life expectancy (SLE) is calculated based on risk estimates and baseline mortality rates. Losses in SLE are aggregated and weighted using national age-adjusted, cause-specific mortality rates. 2030 PM 2.5 pollution in India reaches an annual mean of 74 μg/m 3 , nearly eight times the corresponding World Health Organization air quality guideline. The national average loss in SLE is 32.5 months (95% Confidence Interval (CI): 29.7–35.2, regional range: 8.5–42.0), compared to an average of 53.7 months (95% CI: 46.3–61.1) using methods currently applied in GAINS. Results indicate wide regional variation in health impacts, and these methods may still underestimate the total health burden caused by PM 2.5 exposures due to model assumptions on minimum age thresholds of pollution effects and a limited subset of health endpoints analyzed. Application of the revised exposure-response functions suggests that the most polluted areas in India will reap major health benefits only with substantial improvements in air quality.
9) While air pollution levels in India are amongst the highest in the world, the link between exposure to air pollution and social disadvantages has not been systematically examined. Using a distributive environmental justice framework, this study connects fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) concentration data derived from satellite observations, a global chemical transport model, and ground-based measurements to district level socio-demographic information from the 2011 Census of India. The research objectives are to determine if annual average PM 2.5 concentrations (2010) and recent increases in average PM 2.5 concentrations (2010–2016) are unequally distributed with respect to socially disadvantaged population and household groups, after controlling for relevant contextual factors and spatial clustering. Overall, more than 85% of people and households in India reside in districts where international air quality standards for PM 2.5 are exceeded. Although PM 2.5 concentration levels are significantly higher in more urbanized districts located predominantly in northern India, recent increases have occurred in less urbanized areas located mainly in southern and central India. Multivariable statistical analysis indicated: (1) higher PM 2.5 concentration in districts with higher percentages of Scheduled Castes (SCs), young children, and households in poor condition residence and without toilets; and (2) higher PM 2.5 increases in less urbanized districts with higher percentages of SCs, females, children, people with disabilities, and households with no toilets. These findings thus highlight the need to consider the role of air pollution in exacerbating the consequences of social disadvantages in India.
10) Solid fuels are still a major source for cooking in many households in India causing significant disease and global warming burden. This study analyses the pollution-income relationship (for both local and global pollution), separately across rural and urban households in India based on unit record data on fuel consumption obtained through National Sample Survey data for 2004-05. Based on the estimated relationship, the study makes an attempt to project household level pollution for 2026. The study further analyzes the health burden and greenhouse gas emissions under various policy scenarios including deeper penetration of clean fuels and wider utilization of improved cook stoves.
Conclusion:- India is most polluted country in the world. By understanding benefits of reducing pollution level. India using fixed bated model. India using Thermal inversion as an tool for dealing endogeneity concern. India make some policy that is economically efficient to reduce air pollution.
Reference:-
1) Sankar, Ashwini & Coggins, Jay S. & Goodkind, Andrew L., 2020.
2) Balakrishnan, Uttara & Tsaneva, Magda, 2021.
3) Saudamini Das & Prabhakar Jha & Archana Chatterjee, 2020.
4) Greenstone, Michael & Harish, Santosh & Pande, Rohini & Sudarshan, Anant, 2018.
5) Michael Greenstone & Rema Hanna, 2011.
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