Investigation of Alkaline Nature of Rain Water in India

Authors: Kulshrestha U.C.¹; Kulshrestha M.J.²; Sekar R.²; Vairamani M.²; Sarkar A.K.³; Parashar D.C.³

Source: Water, Air, and Soil Pollution, Volume 130, Numbers 1-4, August 2001 , pp. 1685-1690(6)

Publisher: Springer

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Abstract:

Increased industrialization and urbanization lead to the atmospheric acidity which causes acid rain. However, in India, the nature of rain water has been observed to be alkaline. The reason for alkaline nature of rain water is found to be the buffering of acidity by soil-derived aerosols which are rich in Ca. Over the Indian Ocean where concentrations of soil dust are negligible, the acid rain has been observed to be a common phenomenon during INDOEX campaigns. In the Indian subcontinent, observations have indicated that rain becomes acidic when the buffering potential of rain water is weak. The weak buffering potential may be due to less interference of soil dust, acidic nature of soil or very high influence of industrial source.

Keywords: alkaline rain; soil-dust; precipitation; dustfall; acid rain; buffering; INDOEX

Language: English

Document Type: Regular paper

Affiliations: 1: Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad 500007, India e-mail: umesh@iict.ap.nic.in 2: Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad 500007, India 3: National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi 110 01 India

Publication date: 2001-08-01