Site Description

The instrument platform setup and building location are depicted in the photos appended. The study site, Panchgaon (28.31oN, 76.90oE, 285 m above mean sea level), Haryana State, is a rural location, situated around 50 km from Delhi. The site is located in an agricultural field 25 km north of Amity University. It is surrounded, in the north-east direction, by two cities, namely, Gurgaon (~ 24 km) and Manesar (~9.5 km) which possess several small- and large-scale industries, the study site receives pollution whenever the wind blows in the north-east sector. Its exact geographic location (indicated by donut symbol), and the Amity University Haryana campus along with the monitoring site (shown with asterisk symbol) are shown in Figure below. It is about 5 km away from the Delhi-Jaipur National Highway (NH8) in the north-east (NE) direction, and is enveloped by Aravalli hillocks of average elevation of about 200 m. Thus, the experimental site has complex topography with valley-like terrain. The site receives pollution due to traffic, particularly during nighttime when the heavy vehicles ply on the NH road. Added, the complex wind pattern induced by the surrounding orography often affects the pollution flow at the study region. Further, the building-construction activities within the campus influence the observations. It is also observed that the site is influenced by the Thar Desert, located in the north-east direction, and receives dust pollution through long-range transport process. Thus, although the site is primarily a rural station with sparse residential buildings, population and vegetation fields, it poses sporadic pollution due to the above-mentioned natural and anthropogenic activities.