What Is Polluting Delhi’s Air? A Review from 1990 to 2022
, Sai Krishna Dammalapati 2, Gautam Pradhan 3, Bhargav Krishna 4, Hiren T. Jethva 5 and Puja Jawahar 2
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors have done a thorough job of reviewing and portraying Delhi’s pollution problem. The manuscript is well-drafted with all the relevant sections and references. I have a few following suggestions/comments.
The authors limited their discussion to CAAQMS PM2.5.
- The manual monitoring data/NAMP program was not detailed.
- Throughout the manuscript, micrograms were presented as milligrams. Please correct.
- Table 2: are the values listed here represent climatological mean values or specific to a year?
- Figure 2: CAAQMS uses BAM, which provides hourly mean values. 15-minute data point in this plot needs to be replaced by % of hourly data points
- Figure 2: Across years, the data loss is not uniform. This can lead to bias in the calculation of yearly mean values. I am afraid that this interpreted as a result of policy implementation
- Line 182: Please explain ‘variations by month’
- Is ITO a continuous station or manual?
- Figure 3: color scale is not visible. Is the scale uniform across years? Can authors add the color scale separately to the figure?
- Line 390: chemical and physical transformations?
- Authors can add saans.co.in in relevant section
- Table 4: as the manuscript is limited to PM2.5, can we limit this table to PM2.5 results?
- Figure 5: what’s the relevance of the year 1993?
- Line 686: are the deaths mentioned here PM2.5 attributable mortality?
- The article is too long, authors can push some figures and tables to SI.
- Figure 9: 9a makes more sense if the control day's pollution is compared to Diwali day's pollution levels
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors provided an overall review of the air quality in Delhi. Both scientific and logical meanings are well structured throughout the paper. However, the English should be checked and rewritten before the acceptance in Sustainability.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Title: What is Polluting Delhi’s Air? A Review from 1990 to 2022
Review Comments:
1. The grammar of line 59 needs to be corrected.
2. In line 82, it mentions Delhi as a state; the National Capital Territory may have a legislative assembly but is still not a full-fledged state. It would be better to avoid such usages that might instil confusion among the nation’s citizens.
3. In table 1. on page 2, the first row is inconsistent with the expected data.
4. On page 5, the term ITO is used in the legend of the figure and lines 180 and 196. It would be good if the term could be expanded.
5. Even though the term SAFAR is expanded later, it is better to expand it in the first instance it is used in line 224.
6. The last section of 3.1.2 2006-2018 period (lines 226 to 231) is more appropriate to be written under section 3.1.3.
7. Figure 3 on page 8 is very difficult to read the legends and understand. It is better to split it into multiple subsections and magnify it to make it readable.
8. figure 4 (a) of page 9 looks like it has not been cropped correctly.
9. Is it necessary to include such a lengthy Table 4?
10. It would be better to keep the links to the websites in the reference section only and provide citations in the text.
11. Format of the paragraph from lines 648 to 661 and 913 to 924 appears to be different.
12. Typographical error in line 1152
13. A comprehensive literature review is a prerequisite, and the authors should summarize the research gaps and tell the readers the reasons why do you carry out this study.
Author Response
See attached
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
