Description:
This book discusses the important issue of the socioeconomic and environmental
impacts of agricultural residue burning, common in agricultural practices in many
parts of the world. In particular, it focuses on the pollution caused by rice residue
burning using primary survey data from Punjab, India. It discusses emerging solu-
tions to agricultural waste burning that are cost-effective in terms of both money
and time. The burning of agricultural residue causes severe pollution in land,
water, and air and contributes to increased ozone levels and climate change in the
long term. However, appropriate assessments have not been undertaken so far to
demonstrate the relevant impact of agriculture-based pollution, especially residue
burning. This book addresses this gap in the literature. Punjab has been used as a
case study as it is the chief granary of India, contributing to 27.2 % of the Indian
national produce of rice and 43.8 % of wheat. It is presumed that the findings from
this state will be useful not only for other agricultural areas in India, but across
the world. This book, therefore, sensitizes policy makers, researchers, and students
about the impacts of air pollution caused by agricultural residue burning—a sub-
ject not much dealt with in the literature—and provides a way forward.