EPA begins air quality monitoring in Islamabad

Islamabad: The Federal Environmental Protection Agency has started the regular monitoring of the ambient air quality in Islamabad.

According to an official of the EPA, the agency has found out that the people of Islamabad are taking in healthy air now-a-days. "We have started monitoring of ambient air quality for the public awareness on a daily basis.

This data will not only provide the awareness to the public who are sensitive to dust and air pollutants but will also help the agency for identification of causes of bad air quality in the capital city."

According to the official, the initial trials of air quality monitoring of industrial areas in I-9, I10 and Kahuta triangle was done. That monitoring revealed that the air quality in the winter was more severe in areas where the flow of traffic was high and more industries were located.

"Now regular monitoring has been started to obtain the representative ambient air quality data from the fixed air quality monitoring station located at Pak-EPA premises in sector H-8/2. Air quality data recorded on May 23 revealed that all the parameters are within permissible limits of National Environmental Quality Standards (NEQS)."

The official said the 24 hours average of NO2 was 16.03 µg/m3 and SO2 was 8.48 µg/m3 against the NEQS of 80 and 120 µg/m3. He said the concentration of Particulate Matter of size 2.5 microns was 13.86 µg/m3 against 35 µg/m3 standard.

"One of the major factor of having healthy air in the Islamabad in these days is less traffic load on the roads due to the holidays in all schools and less mobilization of the people due to month of Ramadan. It can be concluded that anthropogenic activities play vital role in air quality of any urban centre," he said.