The latest NASA research findings shows that the emission of the nitrogen dioxide pollutant increased drastically in South Asia region, including India, between 2005-2014, affecting air quality.

Nitrogen dioxide is a yellow-brown nasty smelling gas that is a commonly emitted by motor vehicle exhaust, power plant production, and industrial activity.

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U.S. and Europe are among the largest emitters of nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), but both regions also showed the most dramatic decrease between 2005 and 2014.

The increase in NO₂ levels from 2005 to 2014 in South Asia is associated with fast growing economies and ambitious infrastructural development in the region, such as coal-burning power plants in the Chhattisgarh region of India, NASA said in a statement.

NASA added that one of the largest increases occurred over India, specifically Jamnagar, the site of the largest refining complex in the world.

With the use of new, high-resolution global satellite maps of air quality indicators, NASA scientists were able to track air pollution trends over the last decade in different regions and 195 cities around the globe.

Bryan Duncan, lead researcher, atmospheric scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said in a statement that these changes in air quality patterns are not random.

Duncan and his team studied observations made by the Dutch-Finnish ozone monitoring instrument on board NASA's Aura atmospheric chemistry satellite from 2005 to 2014. One of the atmospheric gases the instrument detects is NO₂.

NO₂ can easily transform into ground-level ozone, a main respiratory pollutant in urban smog. NO₂ hotspots, which are used as an indicator of general air quality, exist over most major cities in developed and developing countries.

The science team analyzed trends in NO₂ levels around the world. The team found that China saw an increase of around 20 to 50 percent in NO₂, much of it occurs over the North China Plain.

Shanghai, Beijing, and the Pearl River Delta, the three major Chinese metropolitan areas, saw NO₂ reductions of as much as 40 percent.

The South African region, including Pretoria and Johannesburg, has the highest nitrogen dioxide levels in the Southern Hemisphere, but the high-resolution map shows a complex situation between the two cities and neighboring power plants and industrial areas. The two cities saw decrease after new cars were required to have an improved emission controls.  However, the highly industrialized area just east of the cities shows both decreases and increases.

On the other hand, in the Middle East, increased NO₂ levels since 2005 in Iraq, Iran, and Kuwait possibly correspond to economic development in those countries. However, in Syria, NO₂ levels decreased since 2011, probably because of civil war, which has interrupted economic activity and moved millions of people.

TagsNASA, Pollution, nitrogen dioxide, Aura Satellite, Bryan Duncan, pollutant, pollutant, Ozone