By Staff Reporter
LAHORE: Lahore’s air has stayed above Pakistan’s fine-particle pollution standards for the past 12 months, including the cleaner summer months, an independent analysis has found, a day before the Punjab government claimed a 15 percent improvement in the city’s air quality.
The report, “Lahore’s smog: The year-round baseline, and what changes in October”, was published on 2 November by the environmental monitoring project Hamari Hawa and written by its founder, Hammad Tariq. It was released on a day when Lahore’s air reached hazardous levels, with the Air Quality Index (AQI) passing 530 and concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) climbing to 343 micrograms per cubic metre.
The analysis drew on ground-monitoring data, satellite observations and atmospheric reanalysis. Lahore’s monthly average PM2.5 concentration stayed above 35 micrograms per cubic metre from October 2025 to October 2026, it found. Even between April and September 2026, the city’s cleanest months, monthly averages ranged from 40 to 59 micrograms. Pakistan’s national annual standard is 15.
The report used historical data from IQAir, which aggregates readings from monitors across the city. The lowest monthly average, 40 micrograms, was recorded in June 2026. From October 2025 to February 2026 the averages ranged between 124 and 183 micrograms, and October 2026 came in at 100.
The report cautioned that 35 micrograms is a 24-hour limit, while the figures it cited are monthly averages. The comparison shows how persistent the pollution is but cannot establish how many individual days breached the daily limit.
Shrinking mixing layer
The report identified a sharp seasonal fall in the height of the atmospheric layer into which pollutants can disperse as one of the factors behind the winter rise.
Using ERA5 atmospheric reanalysis data, it estimated that the average mixing height over Lahore dropped from around 830 to 860 metres in May and June to about 400 metres in October and 260 metres in November. By December it fell to around 190 metres.
A shallower layer leaves less air to dilute pollutants, so concentrations near the ground rise even if emissions stay the same, the report said. In an idealised comparison with all other conditions unchanged, halving or cutting to a third the depth of the mixing layer could make smoke roughly two to three times more concentrated.
Wind did not explain the difference, it added. Lahore’s average wind speed stayed light all year, at about 1.8 to 2.4 metres per second, and October was not necessarily windier or calmer than September.
Crop fires
The report also examined satellite-detected heat spots on farmland around Lahore, which it classed as crop-associated detections after excluding locations near known kilns, dumps, industrial sites and towns.
Between 15 October and 1 November 2026, satellites recorded 781 such detections within 40 kilometres of central Lahore. Sheikhupura district accounted for 322, followed by India’s Tarn Taran district with 149 and Amritsar with 106. Nankana Sahib recorded 77, Lahore district 62 and Kasur 50.
In each of the seven seasons from 2019 to 2025, between 37 and 63 per cent of crop-associated detections within 100 kilometres of Lahore on the Pakistani side came after 1 November. The report said the timing mattered because burning around the rice harvest coincides with the period when the mixing layer is steadily shrinking.
It stressed that satellite heat detections do not confirm individual fires. One field fire can produce several detections, while fires hidden by cloud or burning between satellite passes may be missed. The figures also do not measure the area burnt or the pollution released.
Year-round sources
Sources that operate throughout the year include vehicle exhaust, factories, brick kilns, power plants, generators, household fuels, open rubbish burning and dust, the report said. Some fine particles also form in the atmosphere through chemical reactions involving gases from these sources.
Citing the Urban Unit’s 2023 Lahore emissions inventory, which used 2020-21 data, it said transport accounted for about 35 per cent of the city’s PM2.5 emissions. Crop-residue burning contributed 33 per cent, waste burning 29 per cent and industry 3 per cent.
The report warned against reading the frequently quoted 83 per cent figure for transport as its share of PM2.5. That number covers all pollutants by weight and is dominated by carbon monoxide.
A separate Punjab-wide Urban Unit inventory for 2020 estimated that heavy-duty vehicles and buses produced 55 per cent of road vehicles’ exhaust PM2.5, against 18 per cent from motorcycles. The report said these are provincial estimates, not a direct measurement of Lahore’s pollution today. It also identified 890 mapped brick kilns within 50 kilometres of central Lahore, 196 of them within 25 kilometres.
How much of Lahore’s pollution is generated at home and how much crosses the border remains hard to establish, the report said. Estimates of the cross-border contribution range from 13 to 30 per cent, depending on the study and the area covered. Emissions inventories, ground monitoring and source-apportionment studies each measure different things, it concluded, and their percentages cannot be converted into one another.
Its central finding was that the summer improvement does not mean Lahore has clean air for the rest of the year. Persistent emissions form the baseline, it argued, and the shrinking mixing layer and crop-residue burning add to it during the smog season.
Government claims
The Environment Protection and Climate Change Department (EPCCD) released its own findings on Tuesday. It said Lahore recorded a 15 per cent net improvement across six major air pollutants in the first year of the Punjab government’s real-time air quality monitoring programme. The city’s peak AQI fell 28 per cent in October 2026 from the same month last year, it said.
The department said the gain reflected a fall across all six pollutants rather than a change in one, particularly PM2.5. It also said Lahore recorded no hazardous days, defined as an AQI above 300, in October 2026, against four in October 2025.
The first reading on the provincial portal was published on 1 October 2025, from 30 regulatory-grade stations. The network has since grown to 59, measuring six pollutants and seven meteorological parameters. The government plans to expand it to 100 stations, the department said, arguing that ground-based measurements give officials a firmer footing than low-cost sensors and satellite-derived models.
The EPCCD also addressed the weather. Official Pakistan Meteorological Department figures show Lahore received 50 per cent less rain in October 2026 than a year earlier, it said, meaning the improvement came despite drier conditions.
It then took issue with how the mixing layer has been assessed. Ground measurements by the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (Suparco), using a ceilometer in Lahore, showed an increase of only 10 metres in the minimum mixing height over the comparison period. The department set that against a 25-metre rise cited by the Pakistan Air Quality Initiative (PAQI), and questioned the reliability of the latter. It pointed to peer-reviewed research published in January 2026 that found systematic biases of 200 to 500 metres in ERA5 data over the monsoon region. Such model-derived products are useful for regional research, it said, but limited for judging the local effect of pollution-control policies.
Policy measures
The Punjab government is pursuing a strategy aimed at transport, industry, brick kilns and crop burning, the department said.
It has introduced 612 electric buses and plans to expand the fleet to 3,000. Around 500,000 vehicles have undergone emissions testing, and more than 800 legal notices have been served on heavy vehicles over emissions and fitness certification. The Environment Protection Force monitors emissions, fuel quality and dust control at more than 600 sites across Punjab, the department said, adding that factories emitting excessive smoke without proper controls, or using unauthorised fuels, are not being allowed to operate. Tyre pyrolysis plants and the use of carbon powder as industrial fuel have been banned outright.
On farms, field-level stubble-burning incidents fell by a third in the first year after the government supplied 10,000 super seeders through targeted subsidies, the department said. It plans to raise that number to 25,000 and add Kubota harvesters and stubble balers. More than 95 per cent of Punjab’s brick kilns have adopted zigzag technology, which the department said cuts coal use and emissions. It also cited Petroleum Division figures showing the annual compound growth rate of coal consumption fell by 14.2 per cent.
Weather versus policy
A separate analysis published this week by PAQI offers a more cautious reading of October. It found a 27 per cent fall in PM2.5 against October 2025, with the average at 26 comparable monitoring stations dropping from 136.3 to 100.1 micrograms per cubic metre. PAQI estimated that favourable weather accounted for most of the improvement, and that adjusting for weather leaves a difference of only about 4 per cent.
PAQI said PM2.5 exceeded Pakistan’s 24-hour limit of 35 micrograms on all 31 days of October, though it called the month Lahore’s cleanest October since 2021. Satellites recorded about a third fewer crop fires across Pakistani and Indian Punjab and Haryana, but the main burning period began roughly a week later than in 2025, so part of the apparent drop may reflect timing rather than a lasting decline. PAQI’s forecasting platform projected PM2.5 could reach 149 micrograms by Wednesday, about 49 per cent above the October average.
The EPCCD said its 2026 findings provide a baseline for measuring future progress, and that sustained enforcement and a shift to cleaner fuels and technologies would remain essential to protecting public health in Lahore and the rest of Punjab.
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