Air Pollution Air Quality Air Dispersion
by Bindu
(hyderabad)
Air is the most important element of our human environment. Man cannot live much more than a single moment without air. But we often do not think it is we who pollute this most vital element.
Clean air is essential for all life. Our air has become polluted in several ways. Smoke pollutes the air. Man makes fires to cook food. To make bricks one burns refuse or other fuel and he melts pitch for road construction and combusts wood.
All these things produce thick smoke which smoke pollutes air. Railway engines, powerhouses, mills and factories: all of these things burn coal and oil. Buses, trucks and cars use gasoline and diesel. Again all these things cause smoke and increase air pollution.
The most serious and visible air pollution happens in big industrial areas where many mills and factories operate. And serious air pollution also takes place in big cities where they have many buses, trucks and cars filling the streets everyday.
Sometimes workmen in big industrial areas become so ill by inhaling bad air that they cannot be cured. So proper steps should be taken to prevent air pollution whenever possible.
Barry's Response - Each nation has its own air quality problems, for sure. What you have touched upon is those common to most of the world, and for that reason it is something everyone should make themselves familiar with.
So what is air dispersion? When any wind blows, the pollution is simultaneously transported away from its original source and spread out. As this spreading out (dispersion) takes place, the smoke becomes less thick and dense, and other substances in the air thin out, thereby causing less harm than they would if left in their original, highly-concentrated state.
We can even run mathematical models on our computers that attempt to predict (with some reliability) the results of the pollution, even with transport and dispersion taken into place. We call this art
dispersion modelling. It's an exciting, relatively new area of environmental science.
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