World's first real-time pollution map finds Delhi among worst

The first ever real-time pollution map visualising the state of the world's health has found New Delhi and other cities in India to be among the most polluted in the world.

Cities in India, China and Pakistan ranked consistently as having the worst air. Delhi often outranked not only Beijing but even many cities in China's coal-producing heartland, underlining the perilous state of the capital's health.

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The three-dimensional map draws on readings from thousands of pollution monitoring stations from around the world and uses big data to collate the numbers.

It is a product of AirVisual, an air quality monitoring and forecasting start-up founded by French entrepreneur Yann Boquillod who is based in Beijing.

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"We wanted to help people understand the status of the health of the earth. So by visualising in a 3D map people can actually see the amount of emissions being spread to the world," he told India Today.

DELHI RANKED WORLD'S WORST CITY

Through much of last week, Delhi ranked as the world's worst city. Others in the top ten slots were Dhaka and Karachi.

India and China fared worst in the world on the map. The only other comparable region was the Sahara desert, which shows high readings because of dust.

Delhi consistently ranked higher than Beijing, a city where high levels of smog have become a source of public anger - and forced the government to take drastic steps such as closing down nearby factories.

Boquillod said awareness levels were higher in Beijing than in many other places in Asia including India.

Part of the reason for that was the provision of reliable data measuring PM 2.5 particulate pollution.

"Data is really important for people to know and have awareness for air pollution," he said. "If you check China some years ago, awareness levels were really really low. But then people started to have data for air pollution and that is how they started making change".

The map also forecasts pollution readings to allow people and governments to take action ahead of high pollution occurrences. In Beijing, big data forecasts are used to issue 'red alert' warnings that may even result in the closure of schools when AQI readings cross 200, which, unfortunately, is often a daily occurrence in Delhi.