Preliminary estimates of the primary source contributions to winter aerosols in Bombay, India

Knowledge of the source contributions to urban atmospheric aerosols is essential for the planning of air pollution control strategy. Contributions from major sources such as soil, coal fly ash, sea salt, iron and steel aerosols, fuel oil and automobile debris to winter aerosols in Bombay are calculated. Composition of air particulates, soil and fly ash has been estimated by instrumental neutron activation (I.N.R.A.). For other sources, compositions provided in the literature have been used.The results show that soil and sea salt contributions to winter aerosols in Bombay amount to 53 and 3.8%, respectively, making a total contribution from natural sources of about 57%. Automobile and fuel oil contributions of 0.4% each are very much smaller compared to those in cities of the U.S.A.