%0 Journal Article
%T Deposition and Mineralogical Characteristics of Atmospheric Dust in relation to Land Use and Land Cover Change in Delhi (India)
%A Bablu Kumar
%A Kopal Verma
%A Umesh Kulshrestha
%J Geography Journal
%D 2014
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2014/325612
%X This study highlights that the increasing urbanization and industrialization in Delhi are responsible for higher fluxes of atmospheric dust and its chemical constituents. Delhi has experienced a drastic change in land use and land cover area during the past two decades. Road lengths of the city have increased by 76% from 1985 to 2011. The number of mobile vehicles has reached 80,52,508 in 2014 from 24,32,295 in 1994. The industrial units in Delhi have increased by 39.54% in 2011 as compared to 1994 value. Atmospheric dust which is originated from soil in this region becomes carbon rich due to interaction of suspended soil with atmospheric pollutants. Emissions of carbonaceous aerosols from coal and petroleum combustions are mainly responsible for silica dominated soil dust transforming into carbon rich particulate matter. Such dust may play very important role in the atmosphere having significant influence on human health, global warming, climate change, radiative forcing, visibility, and cloud formation. It is expected that if the rate of development remains the same, green cover of the city invariably will be sized down in order to meet the demand of housing, transportation, industries, and so forth in proportion to the rising population. 1. Introduction Generally, atmospheric dust represents airborne particles in the size range <1£¿¦Ìm to ~75£¿¦Ìm [1, 2]. Atmospheric mineral dust is mainly emitted from arid and dry regions followed by its transportation to distant places through high speed winds. In addition, open land, grazing fields, ploughing, vehicle use, and unpaved roads, and so forth, are also important sources of dust [3]. According to Jickells and coworkers (2005), around one-third of the global land area is considered a potential source of atmospheric dust [4]. Global distribution of atmospheric dust has been thoroughly modelled by Tegen and Fung (1994; 1995) [5, 6]. The abundance of dust in the air is controlled by factors such as vegetation cover, precipitation, wind velocity, and soil moisture [7]. Dust mainly consists of loose particles contributed by soil erosion, road transport, industries, volcanic eruptions, and so forth. The atmospheric mineral dust plays an important role in controlling various atmospheric processes such as radiative forcing, cloud characteristics, precipitation, and atmospheric chemistry [8, 9]. Dust aerosols impact these processes according to their size distribution, origin, and lifetime in the atmosphere [5, 6, 10¨C12]. Mineral dust has significant influence on ecosystem, environment, and biogeochemical cycles
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/geography/2014/325612/