Decoding Delhi’s Pollution Crisis with Hex

Inspiration

Delhi’s air pollution is discussed constantly, but usually as daily averages or headlines that hide the real danger. I was inspired to answer a more human question: When is it actually safe to breathe, step outside, or exercise? I wanted to turn overwhelming air-quality data into clear, hour-by-hour insights people can act on.

What it does

This project analyzes 52,560 hourly air quality observations from 2025 to uncover when, where, and why Delhi’s air becomes dangerous. It reveals daily and seasonal pollution patterns, compares neighborhoods, explains weather-pollution relationships, and translates AQI numbers into concrete health guidance for common people using interactive Hex dashboards.

How we built it

I used Hex’s notebook environment to clean and analyze public air-quality and weather datasets, then layered statistical analysis, correlations, and time-based aggregations. Hex’s AI-assisted exploration helped accelerate insight discovery, while interactive visualizations and narrative sections transformed the analysis into a shareable, story-driven data app.

Challenges we ran into

Air-quality data is noisy, highly seasonal, and varies by location and time of day. The biggest challenge was avoiding misleading averages and instead presenting insights at the hourly level, while keeping the story understandable for non-technical users without oversimplifying the science.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

• Translating complex pollution metrics into clear health implications
• Identifying precise dangerous and safer time windows within a single day
• Demonstrating how weather conditions like temperature inversion systematically worsen pollution

What we learned

We learned that Delhi’s pollution crisis is not random, it is predictable, measurable, and strongly time dependent. Hourly analysis reveals risks that daily averages completely miss, and combining environmental data with storytelling makes insights far more actionable.

What's next for our project

The long-term goal is to turn this into a reusable template for other cities facing similar air-quality challenges.

Dataset used: Delhi 2025 AQI Dataset

Built With

• hex
• python
• sql