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Nature reflects our nature
The air in Kathmandu University: Is it affected by trans-
ported polluted air from Kathmandu Valley?
“As alumni of the Department of Environ-
mental Science and Engineering, Kathmandu
University, I feel honored to get this oppor-
tunity to congratulate the new young mem-
bers of Nature and Social Concern Society
(NSCS). I would also like to congratulate the
team for the new idea of publishing environ-
mental magazine “Pratibimba: nature reflects
our nature”. I hope that this initiative will help
to generate new ideas among environmental-
ist and publish newly updated research pro-
gresses in the field of environmental science
and technology.”
This World Environment Day, June, 5th 2019,
has one of the most important theme “Air Pol-
lution” saying we cannot stop breathing, but we
can do something about the quality of air that we
breathe. Many scientific studies on air pollution
in the Kathmandu valley have shown serious
air pollution hazards with very high concentra-
tions of toxic chemicals in the air. In my opinion
as a researcher and some of the findings from
our work, we found that Kathmandu University
(KU), Dhulikhel, is not safe from air pollutants
transported from the valley especially during the
dry periods (pre-monsoon) (Fig. 1). We initiated
air pollution monitoring based on a collection of
Total Suspended Particulates (TSP) samples
for a year from (January to December 2018) in
collaboration with Dr. Kundan Shrestha (DESE,
School of Science, KU) and his master’s student.
Several chemicals were analyzed from the sam-
pled filters, and the results made me surprised
to see the high concentrations of those pollut-
ants in the KU atmosphere. Mercury one of the
most toxic element and is regarded as the global
pollutant was found to be seriously higher during
the dry periods (except monsoon) and correlat-
ed well with TSP mass and the carbonaceous
components such as Organic carbon, Black car-
bon and the total carbon in the KU sir in 2018.
We analyzed particulate bound mercury (HgP)
from the TSP samples. The HgP and TSP mass
have a clear seasonal variation with significant-
ly decreased concentrations during monsoon
(June-September) and higher during the dry pe-
riods, see Fig. 1.
Furthermore, our results showed significant cor-
relations with TSP, HgP and PM2.5 from Kath-
mandu and Kathmandu University air sam pled on
the same days during the pre-monsoon period
Fig. 2, suggesting that the pollutants from Kath-
Fig. 1. TSP sampling and daily variation of HgP and TSP mass in Kathmandu University
Nature and Social Concern Society
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