Assessment of air pollution disparities and allied climatic variability across the SAARC nations during the past quarter century

This study presents a comprehensive 25-year chronology of air pollution and climatic variable disparity across seven SAARC nations—Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka—emphasizing the region’s developing burdens of fine PM2.5 and SO2 from 2000 to 2024. MODIS and MERRA-2 data are used for a regional-scale analysis of seasonal, annual, and inter-annual variations in PM2.5 and SO2 concentrations. Spatially averaged metrics reveal marked disparities among SAARC coun