Unconventional Methods of Road Side Pollution Mapping in City Areas And Its Implications

Cars and other vehicles are the major contributors of pollution in city areas like Kolkata, along with some minor contributions from small scale industries and thermal power plants. The effects of this pollution can be estimated by many methods some of which require elaborate sampling and high-end analytical instruments. However, there is a simpler and cost effective way and that is by analyzing road dust. Analysis of road dust can contain many intricate details about the pollution also the sampling is quite easy. Our recent study includes systematic collection of dust samples from 200 location covering areas of Salt Lake and North Kolkata and measuring their magnetic susceptibility. Magnetization being a unique property to different elements helps in identification of various heavy elements like Fe, Ni, Co.