April 9, 2007 | CAI-Asia Secretariat
Despite the rapid urbanization and motorization in cities and the steady increase in economic and energy activities in urban areas, long-term trends of annual air quality levels have shown positive improvements. This indicates that the policy measures taken to reduce emissions have started to show positive impacts and that the air in Asia can someday be clean again.
Air Quality in India
CPCB has recently released a report – "Air quality trends and action plan for control of air pollution from seventeen cities" – which is the country’s first ever official assessment of the action plans to control air pollution of 17 cities which were catalyzed since 2002 through the directives of the Indian Supreme Court.
Particulate matter (PM10) and sulfur dioxide (SO2) pollution declined in most of the cities from 2002 to 2005, although nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is notably on the rise in a number of Indian cities. However, these are annual averages; the data do not show exceedances on the day-to-day basis. (These day-to-day exceedances are published every year in the National Status Reports.)
PM10 (micrograms/m3) concentration levels in 17 Indian Cities (2002-2005)
 | Source: CSE, 2007 based on data provided by CPCB
|
NOx (micrograms/m3) concentration levels in 17 Indian Cities (2002-2005)
 | Source: CSE, 2007 based on data provided by CPCB
|
See also:
Air Quality in China
SEPA released last month the 2006 Report on the Environment in China with a chapter on atmospheric environment (English translation available here ). The full report (available in Chinese only) relayed the overall positive changes in the quality of air in 559 Chinese cities with a total population of over 350 million. In the past three years (2004 to 2006), the number of Chinese cities with Air Quality Grades I and II is increasing while the number of cities with poor Grade III or worse than Grade III levels is decreasing. In fact, comparing 2005 and 2006 air quality levels, the proportion of cities with Grade II or better air quality levels has increased by 4.7% and the proportion of cities with air quality worse than Grade III dropped by 2.1%. The main pollutant is still particulate matter with 33.5% of the cities failing the Grade II annual standard last year (2006) while SO2 is next pollutant of concern. Annual NO2 levels of all cities met the annual Grade II standard.
Proportion of Chinese Cities in Corresponding Air Quality Grades (2004 to 2006)
 | Source: SEPA, 2007.
|
Although slight improvements in air quality are observed for cities in both countries, the levels of pollution however are still generally way above the prescribed ambient air quality guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO) suggesting that the impact on public health is still a challenge.
The improvement in air quality exhibited by Indian and Chinese cities is shared by Asian cities in general as documented in the 19 Country/City synthesis reports on the air quality management in Asia that the Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities (CAI-Asia) released last December 2006.
These improvements should help acknowledge the efforts of government, civil society and the private sector in contributing towards reducing emissions from different sources of air pollution, encouraging them more to improve on the measures to achieve better air quality.
CAI-Asia is currently compiling more-up-to date air quality information on a more comprehensive number of cities to provide a better overview of the air quality in Asia.
For inquiries, please contact:
Cornie Huizenga, chuizenga@adb.org
Head of Secretariat - CAI-Asia
| 
