Knowledge of Farming Families Regarding Air Pollution and its Mitigation Pratiksha*, Sharma Preeti Department of Extension Education and Communication Management, College of Community Science, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana-141001, Punjab *Corresponding author email id: pratikshasinghcsa@gmail.com
Abstract Air pollution is one of the major health problems confronting humans today. It is the existence of pollutants in the form of solid, liquid or gas in atmosphere in such an amount that is injurious to human, plants and animals. Air pollution is caused by pollutants like CO, CH4, NO2, SO2 that are emitted from burning crop, industries and vehicles. In Punjab, air pollution is high because of burning of crop residue. The present study entitled ‘Knowledge level of farming families regarding air pollution and its application for mitigation’ was conducted with the objectives to assess the knowledge level of respondents regarding causes, effects and mitigation practices for air pollution and to study the application of mitigation strategies by the respondents. Data was collected from five agro-climatic zones i.e. central plain zone, sub-mountain undulating zone, undulating plain zone, western plain zone and western zone of Punjab state. From each of the selected agro-climatic zone, fifteen farm families were selected randomly, the male and female heads of the family were chosen for responses, thus, in total 150 respondents were randomly selected. Data was collected using pre-tested structured interview schedule. A knowledge test was developed and pre tested for its reliability and validity. The data was analyzed using frequencies and percentile. The findings of the study revealed that majority of the respondents across all agro-climatic zones had high level of knowledge for causes, mitigation and medium level of knowledge for effects of air pollution. Overall, a large percentage of respondents had good amount of knowledge about mitigation of air pollution but very few mitigation strategies were applied for combating air pollution. It is suggested that extension trainings / camps should be organized with more emphasis on mitigation strategies to combat air pollution and innovative behavior change communication strategies need to be applied to improve the practical application of knowledge gained. Top Keywords Agro-climatic zones, Air pollution, Farming families, Knowledge level, Mitigation. Top |