All problem statements
SIH26082SoftwareClean & Green Technology

Air Pollution–Weather Coupled Forecasting System (Delhi NCR Focus)

Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES)

Ideas submitted
67 / 500
Deadline
30 September 2026
Category
Software
Theme
Clean & Green Technology

Looks like it needs

AI / ML

Traditional Air Quality Index (AQI) forecasting models typically treat meteorology and pollution dispersion as separate entities. However, in highly polluted urban landscapes like Delhi NCR, there is a critical, dynamic feedback loop between the weather and pollutants. During peak pollution seasons (such as the winter stubble-burning period), atmospheric inversion layers trap particulate matter close to the ground. Conversely, dense concentrations of aerosols (PM2.5) block sunlight,altering local temperatures, wind patterns, and planetary boundary layer (PBL) heights. Ignoring these coupled meteorological-chemical feedback loops leads to significant inaccuracies in standard AQI predictions. To achieve high-accuracy, actionable insights, there is an urgent need for an integrated system that simulates real-time interactions between atmospheric physics and chemical transport.

The challenge is to build a high-resolution, coupled forecasting system specifically tailored for Delhi NCR that predicts AQI for the next 72 hours.

The solution must leverage advanced weather-chemistry models (such as WRF-Chem or similar open-source coupled frameworks) to dynamically interlink meteorology with pollution dispersion(specifically PM2.5 and Ground-level Ozone). A core focus should be accurately modeling the impact of atmospheric inversion on external pollution spikes, such as regional stubble burning,and how those trapped pollutants subsequently alter local weather conditions.Implement a workflow that handles two-way feedback between meteorology (temperature, wind,PBL height) and chemistry (PM2.5, PM10, O3,NOx). A user-friendly, real-time dashboard displaying high-resolution AQI forecasts for Delhi NCR with a 72-hour outlook. Features that explicitly track atmospheric inversion strength and predict how stubble-burning plumes will disperse under prevailing weather conditions.

How contested this one is

as of 28 Sept
67ideas submitted+11 in 2 days

That puts it 152nd of the 240 statements that have any ideas at all, out of 240 on the board. It is moving, so the field here is already forming.

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What a jury will ask about this

  1. 01“Who actually faces this problem today?”

    What works: Naming one real person and what they do instead right now. Reading the statement back is not an answer, they already read it.

  2. 02“This already exists. Why yours?”

    What works: That existing tools are consumer products. Yours is built for the ministry, works offline, in the local language, on official data.

  3. 03“Then why has nobody solved it yet?”

    What works: The real blocker. No connectivity, no incentive, nobody owns the data. You only know this if you read the ministry's own reports.

All 18 questions, with the trap answers →

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