Prof. Chandra Venkataraman's Talk

Apr 19, 2018 - 17:00

Apr 19, 2018 - 18:00

Thursday 19-th April at 5:00 PM

Seminars

Prof. Chandra Venkataraman Department of Chemical Engineering and Interdisciplinary Programme in Climate Studies IIT Bombay

Abstract: India currently experiences degraded air quality which has received wide media attention especially in terms of excess premature deaths attributable to air pollution. In this talk scientific methods underpinning such estimates will be discussed with a focus on energy and emissions modelling as well as modelling atmospheric transport and chemistry of pollutants. Results will be discussed from a collaborative study under the Global Burden of Disease-Major Air Pollution Sources (GBD-MAPS) project wherein a systematic analysis was made of emissions from major sources and their impact on ambient air pollution exposure in India. Scenarios of sectoral emissions of fine particulate matter and its precursors were developed and evaluated for 2015-2050 under specific pathways of diffusion of cleaner and more energy efficiency technologies. The impacts of individual source-sectors on PM2.5 concentrations were assessed through sensitivity simulations of spatially and temporally resolved particulate matter concentrations using the GEOS-Chem model aggregated to national and state levels. We find that PM2.5pollution (mass concentrations of particles smaller than 2.5 m aerodynamic diameter) is a pan-India problem with a regional character not limited to urban areas or megacities. Under present day emissions levels in most states exceeded the national PM2.5standard (40 μg/m3). The largest influences on outdoor air pollution are estimated from residential biomass combustion agricultural residue burning and industry/power-plant emissions. This raises questions about the present disconnect between environmental regulation (largely of industry and transport) and development policy (related to residential clean energy and agricultural technology).Bio-sketch: Chandra Venkataraman is Professor of Chemical Engineering and Associate Faculty in the Interdisciplinary Programme in Climate Studies in whose establishment she played an instrumental role. Prof. Venkataraman studies aerosol processes within multi-scale atmospheric phenomena combining data-driven energy and emissions modelling climate model simulations and experimental studies of pollution particles. She also studies aerosol routes for the synthesis of nanoparticles for drug delivery. Her influential work has resulted in over 90 papers in international journals receiving over 6000 citations. Prof. Venkataraman has contributed to building institutional and national research networks for climate and air quality studies. She was PI of the DST-Centre of Excellence in Climate Studies at IIT Bombay (2012-17) and is presently co-PI of its second phase (2018-23). As National Coordinator of the NCAP-COALESCE project (2017-22) under the auspices of the MoEFCC she leads a consortium of 17 institutional partners in investigating regional climate impacts of carbonaceous aerosols. She serves on the Editorial Boards of Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry and Tellus (B). Prof. Venkataraman is past recipient of a Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Fellowship (2012) and Vikram Sarabhai Award in Atmospheric and Space Science (2006). She was elected to the National Academy of Engineering (2016) and both the National Academy of Science India and the Indian Academy of Sciences (2017). compulsory for CL702 and CL704 students.