Beijing is taking action to get to the bottom of the city's air
pollution problem, in a bid to ensure blue skies during the 2008 Olympic Games.
Environmentalists from home and abroad will study the emission
and transfer of air pollutants in north China, according to a
programme launched by Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection
Bureau.
Suggestions will be given on how to improve air quality in
Beijing, as well on how to decrease emissions of pollutants in
neighbouring provinces, once the programme ends in December 2007,
said Li Xin, an official from the bureau.
"It is an unprecedented environmental programme in Beijing, with
a record input of 26 million yuan (US$3.2 million) approved by the
Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission," she said.
The programme has seven points of focus, ranging from the
utilization of remote sensing in air pollution monitoring and how
secondary air pollution forms in the region, to possible
countermeasures to ensure quality air.
The implementation of the programme will reach an international
level of air pollution study, Li said.
"Air pollutant data will be collected at 20 or so monitoring
stations in Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia,"
said Shao Min, an environmental professor from Peking University,
at a monitoring station in a southern suburb of the capital.
Advanced environmental monitoring technologies will be used in
the programme, he noted.
Three comprehensive observations across the region will be
arranged between August 2006 and 2007 to monitor primary and
secondary air pollutants, researchers said.
(China Daily September 8, 2006)