About Air Quality Watch – HKH

International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) is a regional intergovernmental knowledge and learning centre serving the eight countries of the Hindu Kush Himalaya: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan. Founded in 1983 and headquartered in Kathmandu, Nepal, ICIMOD's mission is to build and share knowledge that drives regional policy and action, enabling the region's diverse countries and communities to move toward greener, more inclusive, and climate-resilient development.

Air quality is one of ICIMOD's core areas of work, carried out through its Regional Programme on Atmosphere and its Atmospheric Watch Initiative. This work focuses on generating scientific evidence on pollution sources, improving access to air quality data, and strengthening the science-policy linkages that regional member countries need to act on transboundary pollution.

ICIMOD's fifth Medium-Term Action Plan (MTAP V: 2023–2026) outlines a roadmap for achieving a greener, inclusive, and climate resilient HKH. Air Quality is one of the four long-term impact areas recognised by the ICIMOD 2030 Strategy.

Established in 2013 as part of the regional atmosphere program, the Atmospheric Watch Initiative (AWI) was previously known as the Atmosphere Initiative until December 2019. AWI aims to reduce air pollution impacts in the HKH through enhanced knowledge and capacity. It works on understanding emissions sources, atmospheric processes, air pollution impacts, testing mitigation solutions, building cross-border networks, and contributing to policies at various levels.

The Air Quality Watch-HKH initiative is developing an integrated information platform for air quality data. This platform supports decision-making by professionals responsible for air quality management. It enables users to compare pollutants and observations from different data sources, providing a comprehensive understanding of the situation.

Millions of people across the Indo-Gangetic Plain and Himalayan foothills are exposed to hazardous levels of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) for much of the year, with concentrations during peak smog episodes reaching many times the WHO's recommended limits. Because this pollution crosses borders, moving with weather systems between countries and sub-regions, no single country can address it alone. Air Quality Watch – HKH was built to give the region a shared, public picture of this problem.

The portal brings together ground-based monitoring data with satellite observations and atmospheric modelling to show current conditions and short-term forecasts across local, sub-regional, and regional scales. Its forecasting tool is powered by the Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem), which simulates how emissions and weather interact to produce a rolling forecast of PM2.5 and other pollutants; including a visual timelapse of pollution plumes moving across the region, through hotspots such as Lahore, New Delhi, and Kolkata.

The dashboard was developed under ICIMOD's Atmospheric Watch Initiative, with technical collaboration from NASA SERVIR, the joint NASA–USAID programme ICIMOD has implemented in the region as SERVIR-HKH, alongside regional member country government agencies who contribute ground monitoring data and domain expertise.