Stack emissions and health risk integrated (SEHRI) model: a tool for stack emissions and health risk modeling Pralhad P. Walvekar 1 & Bhola R. Gurjar 2 & Ajay Singh Nagpure 3 Received: 8 June 2018 /Accepted: 28 October 2019 # Springer Nature B.V. 2019 Abstract The quantitative assessment of health burden of coal power stack emissions is a vital step to frame effective policy measures to achieve emission reductions and corresponding health benefits. A plant-specific stack emission, dispersion, and health risk integrated (SEHRI) model has been proposed to estimate coal power stack emissions, resulting ambient air concentrations and associated health risks in the vicinity of a coal power plant. In this study, we have estimated the health benefits due to closure of Badarpur Thermal Power Station (BTPS), New Delhi. The SEHRI model has been applied to estimate decreased health risks due to particulates (PM 2.5 ) and gaseous (SO 2 , NO x ) stack emissions released from the plant. More than 1050 premature deaths are avoided and 526 life years are saved resulting from reduction in particulate and gaseous stack emissions, respectively, due to closure of the plant. It is expected that environmental engineers, scientists, and air quality managers would find the SEHRI model as a useful tool to study emissions and health impacts related to coal-based power plants and guide an effective control policy for air pollution abatement. Keywords Coal power plants . Emission estimation . Health benefits . Premature mortality . Morbidity Introduction Coal is the dominant source of energy generation in India, out of total power generation capacity coal share highest(57.3%), followed by renewable energy sources (20.1%), hydropower (13.2%), natural gas (7.2%), nuclear (2%), and oil (0.2%) on July 2018 (MoP 2018). Despite its largest share in electricity generation, coal-fired thermal power plants contribute a dis- proportionate share of power generation-related emissions in India. It is anticipated that air pollution emissions from coal- based thermal power plants will increase significantly in near future (Mittal et al. 2012). Since coal power plants have predominant role in energy production and high share in air pollution emissions, which in turn has direct effects on human health, it needs more stringent policies to reduce its impacts. In local and regional policy perspectives, it is important to understand the contribution of thermal power plants for air pollution, its dispersion, and effects on human health. Many researchers in India have addressed the air pollution emissions and its impacts on human health (TERI 1992; Kumar and Rao 2001; Gurjar et al. 2010; Guttikunda and Goel 2013; Chate et al. 2013; Lelieveld et al. 2013; Nagpure et al. 2014). However, only a few researchers have conducted the emission sources, its dispersion, and associated health risk-based inte- grated studies in India (Lvovsky et al. 2000; Kumar et al. 2011; Mohan et al. 2011; Relhan, 2011). Especially for coal- based thermal power plants, only two studies (Cropper et al. 2012; Guttikunda and Jawahar 2013) are available which es- timated coal power stack emission and health risk in an inte- grated way in India. This limited knowledge and gap in emis- sion and health risk-based integrated studies for coal power stack emission highlight the opportunity for more detailed studies in this field. An integrated emissions and health risk assessment model that can estimate the magnitudes of burden of coal power stack emissions on human health can be prominently useful for filling the knowledge gap in this field, given the fact that Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11869-019-00766-w) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Ajay Singh Nagpure nagpureajay@gmail.com; ajay.nagpure@wri.org 1 Department of Civil Engineering, Zeal College of Engineering and Research, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune, Maharashtra, India 2 Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India 3 World Resource Institute India, Delhi, India Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health https://doi.org/10.1007/s11869-019-00766-w