Decadal growth of black carbon emissions in India

Abstract

A Geographical Information System (GIS) based methodology has been used to construct the black carbon (BC) emission inventory for the Indian geographical region. The distribution of emissions from a broader level to a spatial resolution of 1° × 1° grid has been carried out by considering micro level details and activity data of fossil fuels and bio-fuels. Our calculated total BC emissions were 1343.78 Gg and 835.50 Gg for the base years 2001 and 1991 respectively with a decadal growth of around 61%, which is highly significant. The district level analysis shows a diverse spatial distribution with the top 10% emitting districts contributing nearly 50% of total BC emission. Coal contributes more than 50% of total BC emission. All the metropolitan cities show high BC emissions due to high population density giving rise to high vehicular emissions and more demand of energy.