Fundamentals of Air Pollution: Sources, Effects and Mitigation

By Prof.Kirpa Ram | Banaras Hindu University

Learners enrolled: 623 | Exam registration: 114

ABOUT THE COURSE:

The proposed course is aimed to develop good concept and understanding of various topics related to air pollution and its sources with impacts on our Earth’s various ecosystem. In this course, the audiences will be able to learn basics about the evolution of the Earth’s atmosphere and comparison with the variety of planets existing out there in space. Several other topics such as urban heat island, meteorological parameters, lapse rate are the topic of concern and will be discussed in details. The course will also cover various aspects of aerosol and cloud interaction, air pollution and climate change as well as monitoring of air pollutants and their vertical profiling using satellites. This course, thus, includes from the basics of air pollution, sources and factors affecting it, impact and mitigation measures.

INTENDED AUDIENCE:

● Undergraduate, post-graduate, research scholars, teachers,librarian and professors of Colleges and Universities as well as industries dealing with pollution aspects

● Chemical Engineering, Environmental Chemistry, Earth & Planetary Science, Energy, Engineering and Environmental Science

● Science enthusiastic working in the areas of air pollution,policy makers and impact assessment researcher/reporters

PREREQUISITES: Basic knowledge of Physics, Chemistry, Botany and Math at 10+2/ BSc level

INDUSTRY SUPPORT: CPCB and UPCB, policy makers and impact assessment researcher/reporters, MoEF & CC, DST

Summary

Course Status :	Ongoing
Course Type :	Core
Language for course content :	English
Duration :	12 weeks
Category :	Environmental Sciences Earth Sciences Chemical Engineering
Credit Points :	3
Level :	Undergraduate/Postgraduate
Start Date :	20 Jan 2025
End Date :	11 Apr 2025
Enrollment Ends :	03 Feb 2025
Exam Registration Ends :	28 Feb 2025
Exam Date :	25 Apr 2025 IST

Note: This exam date is subject to change based on seat availability. You can check final exam date on your hall ticket.

Page Visits

Course layout

Week 1: Evolution and uniqueness of Earth’s atmosphere and its constituents, properties and relevance, Importance of GHGs in the atmosphere

Week 2: Air pollution: gaseous and particulate air pollution

Week 3: Urban air pollution, road dust emission, Impact on green belt and plant photosynthesis, Urban heat island effect

Week 4: Atmospheric Aerosols: Sources, composition, chemistry

Week 5: Secondary aerosols: Formation and their importance

Week 6: Air pollution and its impact: Health effects, plant photosynthesis, crop productivity, plant disease caused by deposition of air pollution

Week 7: Methods for measuring air pollution and mitigation: Sampling techniques, Offline and online methods

Week 8: Optical properties of aerosols: absorption methods: BC aerosols, BrC, Scattering optical methods: beta attenuation, AOD, radiative forcing and climatic impact of aerosol

Week 9: Aerosol chemistry and cloud interaction, aerosols as CCN, cloud formation and precipitation

Week 10: Air pollution and cryosphere (Antarctic, Arctic, Himalayas), snow albedo, melting of glaciers

Week 11: Aerosols as nutrients: Deposition of particulates species (limiting nutrients such as Fe, P, N) and acidic species (HNO3 , H2SO4) and its impact on Ocean pH, biogeochemistry

Week 12: Physical laws governing climate change

Books and references

1. J. Glynn Heney and Gary W. Heinke, Environmental Science and Engineering (2nd Edition)

2. Seinfeld & Pandis, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics

3. Finlayson-Pitts & Pitts, Chemistry of the Upper and Lower Atmosphere: Best book if you want to work in Atmospheric Chemistry

Instructor bio

Prof.Kirpa Ram

Banaras Hindu University

Prof.Kirpa Ram holds a doctoral degree in Chemistry from Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad with specializations the field of atmospheric physics, air pollution and atmospheric chemistry. Later, he worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Tokyo, Japan. After a short period of stay at IIT Bhubaneshwar (as Inspire Faculty) and NEERI, Nagpur as Scientist, the instructor joined Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development, Banaras Hindu University as an Assistant Professor March 2014. Apart from being an accomplished researcher in the field of atmospheric and aerosol sciences, the instructor has been teaching atmospheric physics, air pollution and atmospheric chemistry to post-graduate and PhD scholars. He has been giving popular lectures to various academic as well as non-academic Institutions in India on world environment day, ozone day and at various orientation and refresher courses organized by the Universities aa well as to the schools and colleges in India.

Course certificate

The course is free to enroll and learn from. But if you want a certificate, you have to register and write the proctored exam conducted by us in person at any of the designated exam centres.

The exam is optional for a fee of Rs 1000/- (Rupees one thousand only).

Date and Time of Exams: April 25, 2025 Morning session 9am to 12 noon; Afternoon Session 2pm to 5pm.

Registration url: Announcements will be made when the registration form is open for registrations.

The online registration form has to be filled and the certification exam fee needs to be paid. More details will be made available when the exam registration form is published. If there are any changes, it will be mentioned then.

Please check the form for more details on the cities where the exams will be held, the conditions you agree to when you fill the form etc.

CRITERIA TO GET A CERTIFICATE

Average assignment score = 25% of average of best 8 assignments out of the total 12 assignments given in the course.
Exam score = 75% of the proctored certification exam score out of 100

Final score = Average assignment score + Exam score

Please note that assignments encompass all types (including quizzes, programming tasks, and essay submissions) available in the specific week.

YOU WILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR A CERTIFICATE ONLY IF AVERAGE ASSIGNMENT SCORE >=10/25 AND EXAM SCORE >= 30/75. If one of the 2 criteria is not met, you will not get the certificate even if the Final score >= 40/100.

Certificate will have your name, photograph and the score in the final exam with the breakup.It will have the logos of INI and BHU .

Only the e-certificate will be made available. Hard copies will not be dispatched.

Once again, thanks for your interest in our online courses and certification. Happy learning.

- INI team