The incidents of stubble burning in several states of India like Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi are becoming a major concern given the increasing level of pollution in the capital city of India. However, recent reports have suggested that while Punjab still leads in the number of farm fire incidents, it came down substantially compared to previous years. This was seen as a welcome change. But, now experts have indicated that the data showing the decline in stubble burning may be misleading, and farmers might be fooling the satellites used to monitor fire incidents.
With satellite monitoring becoming a main tool for tracking and mitigating such environmental concerns, new evidence reported exclusively by NDTV on Friday, 15th November, revealed that farmers may be devising strategies to avoid satellite surveillance. Experts now believe that alterations in the timing of stubble burning may be a planned attempt by farmers to avoid detection.
This is a day after the reports emerged claiming that the number of farm fires in Punjab had dropped dramatically, from roughly 79,000 in 2021 to approximately 32,000 in 2023. As of November 10th, the state of Punjab has recorded 6,611 fires, down from 32000 in the last year and the lowest in the last five years. Haryana too has shown a significant decline, from around 11,000 to around 3,300.
These numbers are notably based on analysis of satellite images. However, it has come to the fore that the farmers in the state of Punjab have allegedly been using clever strategies to avoid satellite monitoring to portray that the stubble-burning incidents in Punjab have been going down.
The Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) praised Punjab for lowering stubble-burning incidents by 71% compared to prior years. However, scientists are questioning whether the reported decline in fire counts adequately represents the reality on the ground. Scientist Hiren Jethva associated with NASA stated that it is not true that farm fires in Punjab and Haryana have gone down. He stated that the incidents of farm fires in Punjab this week crossed the mark of 7000 alone with 400 cases reported afresh.
He stated that the farmers in Punjab time the NASA satellites that monitor fire incidents and burn the stubble when the satellites are not above the area. This is because NASA uses polar satellites for its Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS). Polar satellites orbit around earth several times a day, and as they orbit, they scan the ground below. As the earth is continuously rotating on its axis, a polar satellite orbits at a different longitude at each pass around the earth. While this allows a polar satellite to cover the entire earth in a short span of time, this also means that it scans a particular area only for a short time at specific times of the day.
Now it has turned out that the farmers have learnt the time when the NASA satellites scan the region and have now started avoiding those times to burn stable. As per experts, they are now burning farm residues in the afternoon and evening, after the satellites have passed over the area. The fire is automatically subdued by the next day when the satellite arrives over the area. As a result, satellites see no fire below, thus generating misleading data.
This is not just a theory but proven by a geostationary satellite. South Korean geostationary satellites spotted a large number of farm fires in Punjab in the late afternoon after NASA’s polar satellites scanned the area.
Unlike polar satellites, geostationary satellites orbit around the Earth in such a way that they remain in a fixed place relative to Earth. Such satellites orbit at the exact rate of Earth’s rotation on its axis, therefore it is always present over a specific place on Earth. geostationary orbit is over 35000 km from the Earth’s surface, while polar satellites orbit at a much lower altitude, generally between 200 and 1,000 kilometres above the Earth’s surface. Therefore, geostationary satellites can’t be avoided by timing an event, as they are continuously monitoring the same region.
Hiren Jethva said, “We use the afternoon satellite overpass time data from NASA Satellites like Suomi NPP and Aqua. They overpass the region around 1:30-2:00 pm but somehow they (farmers) have learnt that they can bypass the satellite overpass time and can burn the crop residue in the late afternoon. This is confirmed by the South Korean geostationary satellite that the majority of the crop burning happens after 2 pm once the NASA satellites overpass the region when there is no surveillance, but the fires cannot be hidden from geostationary satellites which take a picture of the region every five minutes”.
In an X post, he shared the satellite image from 29th October taken by the GEO-KOMSAT A2 satellite and highlighted a timelapse of the crop-burning activities in northwest India. “The images show dense cloud cover over the region post-4 pm, when compared to 1:30 pm,” he said suggesting that farmers burn the crops late afternoon to avoid NASA satellite surveillance.
Stubble (parali) burning is a method of removing paddy crop residues from the field to sow wheat from the last week of September to November. Almost everyone has agreed that stubble burning by farmers in the nearby states, mainly in Punjab and Haryana, has been the primary reason behind deteriorating air quality in Delhi. However, Haryana has improved its condition by reporting the fewest incidents in the previous five years.
However, recently, it was reported that Punjab’s particular program to reduce agricultural waste is experiencing major obstacles as northern India struggles with a severe pollution crisis exacerbated by stubble burning. As a long-term solution to the stubble-burning issue, the government started a plan to establish Compressed Biogas (CBG) Plants which are considered as a sustainable solution to the stubble-burning issue. Nevertheless, the project has been halted by persistent farmer protests, resulting in only five of the thirty-eight facilities that were originally intended to be operational and none running at full capacity.
Notably, despite claims of decreasing fire numbers, aerosol loading a measure of pollutants such as carbonaceous smoke emitted by stubble burning is consistent or even greater than in prior years. Aerosol data is collected via satellites that monitor particle matter in the atmosphere. Jethva observes that the persistent aerosol presence contradicts the stated drop in stubble burning. This disparity shows that rather than diminishing, fire activity may just be evading detection.
As per the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) too, the maximum number of cases of stubble burning are reported from Punjab. Dr Piyush Bharadwaj, an air quality scientist with the Center for Study of Science, Technology, and Policy (CSTEP) quoted by Swarajmag further supported the claim saying that the air quality in Delhi which is drastically affected due to the stubble burning incidents in Punjab has shown no improvement.
According to his group’s atmospheric forecasting data, pollution levels have not improved considerably in the last five years, implying that variables other than satellite-detected fire counts may be impacting seasonal pollution patterns in Delhi.
The theory that farmers in Punjab may be deliberately burning crops after satellite overpasses is reinforced by observations from South Korea’s geostationary satellite, GEO-KOMSAT 2A. Unlike polar-orbiting satellites, which capture regional images only once or twice daily, geostationary satellites offer continuous monitoring with images taken every few minutes.
On November 1, 2024, GEO-KOMSAT 2A recorded minimal fire activity at 1:30 pm, aligning with NASA’s satellite overpass. However, by 4:20 pm, there was a notable increase in fire activity. This surge was confirmed by shortwave-infrared signals, which detect heat sources such as fires. Bharadwaj points out that the MODIS sensors on NASA’s polar-orbiting satellites have a resolution of 1 square kilometer, making it possible for smaller fires to go undetected and potentially leading to an underestimation of fire activity.
The air quality in Delhi has deteriorated and stubble burning in states like Punjab and Haryana is the main cause of it though the leftist cabal and Delhi’s AAP government blame Hindu festivals for it. They blame the bursting of firecrackers during Diwali. However, it has been widely agreed that stubble-burning incidents from Punjab have contributed the most to the poor air quality of Delhi.
At 9 am Friday, Delhi’s Air Quality Index (AQI) was 428, categorizing it as ‘severe’. This is Delhi’s worst air quality rating of the season, and the highest in the country, with a 24-hour AQI of 418 on Wednesday, up from 334 the day before.
