Kolkata: The West Bengal Pollution Control Board (WBPCB) has begun a collaborative study with Columbia University and a Bengaluru-based think tank.
The study proposes to assess whether pollutants in urban industrial zones and rural parts of the state carry similar levels of toxicity.
West Bengal currently has around 400 pollution monitoring stations operated by the WBPCB, generating data at 15-minute intervals. This large volume of real-time data forms the backbone of the study.Â
Columbia University is supporting the project through its Clean Air Initiative, led by Principal Investigator Faye McNeill. The university is working with the WBPCB on data calibration, analysis, and policy advisory support.
The exercise aims to move beyond conventional air quality readings. It plans to examine whether differences in pollutant composition translate into different public health outcomes across regions.
The focus is on toxicity rather than just concentration. AQI, commonly used as a public-facing measure of air pollution, may not fully capture how harmful the pollutants are in different locations.
WBPCB routinely shares pollution data with researchers from colleges and universities to help develop policy inputs and identify additional pollution-control measures.
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