Better use of air quality reports urged
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E-mail China Daily, October 25, 2012
Beijing has also vowed to further improve its emergency plan to respond to heavy pollution, with measures including halting transportation around construction site, to avoid raising dust, and cleaning and watering the roads.
However, the details of the plan have not yet been released.
"We've sent a request to the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau asking for the details of the emergency plan weeks ago, but we haven't received any reply yet," said Wang Qiuxia, a researcher with Green Beagle, an environmental protection NGO.
A total of 29 cities, including Zhengzhou in Central China's Henan province and Southwest China's Chongqing, had not set up air-pollution reports as of Aug 31, the survey said.
As many as 192 stations in 56 cities have started monitoring PM2.5 levels in the past year, while 104 stations in 26 cities have started monitoring ozone levels, and 96 stations nationwide began measuring the intensity of carbon monoxide, said the survey.
Beijing - which set up 35 citywide air-monitoring stations in October that release hourly updates on PM2.5, along with reports on sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and PM10 - tops the air-quality transparency index, followed by Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Dongguan, all of which are in South China's Guangdong province.
"It's exciting that Guangzhou is among the top three cities, which means that our hard work has been recognized by our peers nationwide and the general public," said Huang.
"We're planning to add more monitoring sites, and to offer people easier and more diversified access to the information," said Huang.
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