In recent years the concern about the behaviour of oxidesof nitrogen (NO
x: NO, NO
2) in atmospherehas increased considerably. NO
x undergoesvarious complex atmospheric reactions to generatesecondary pollutants which are known to cause severeadverse effects on human health. This work focuses onthe study of physical and chemical fate of NO
xreleased in the atmosphere from vehicles, which arethe main sources of atmospheric NO
x.Keeping the objective and standard guidelines formonitoring in view, two typical sites near the roadwith high vehicular density were chosen for the study.One site was a relatively cleaner area with onlyvehicles as major source of pollution, and the secondsite was a traffic junction in an industrial region,where pollution levels are amongst the highest inMumbai. Ambient monitoring of NO
x was done for 24 hr continuously using chemiluminescent NO
xanalyser. The data was used to analyse temporal andspatial variation of NO, NO
2 and NO
x andtheir atmospheric chemical reactions.The monitoring results show that at larger distancefrom the road the level of NO decreases but theconcentration of NO
2 which is very harmfulremains the same. Statistical analysis is conductedto establish the relationship between likely change inNO
2 concentration as a result of NO
xemission changes.
atmospheric reactions - monitoring - oxides of nitrogen