Sathyabama to study dumpyard emissions in city

Monitering methane and CO2 emissions from anthropogenic sources is essential to understand the environmental and health impacts of greenhouse gases. Dr Dawn SS, head of the centre and principal investigator of the project, said “We started the project in September last year, have completed 60 per cent of the work so far. We will be installing 40 sensors in the five kilometre periphery of both the dumpyards to monitor Carbon-di-Oxide and Methane levels.” 

Chennai is one of the largest cities in India generating about 4,350 Metric Tonnes (MT) of waste every day, dumped into 10 dump yards across the city, of which Kodungaiyur and Perungudi are the bigger ones, started three decades ago. Dr T Sasi Praba, co-investigator of the project and Dean (publications & conferences) at the university, pointed out that they would integrate the sensors with transmitting device, which would be continuously transmit data to the university’s server using GPRS. 

“After analysis, data will be uploaded onto a website. This data will help government agencies in their decision making process. We will also study the data at various periods like summer, winter and rainy season to understand emission of greenhouse gas emission at various periods. The union government’s Department of Science and Technology has funded the project,” she added.