EPA report shows capital air healthy

Islamabad: The Environmental Protection Agency has declared the air of Islamabad is healthy these days.

According to it, this is because of the less traffic load on the roads due to summer break in schools and less mobilisation of the people due to the month of Ramazan. "It can be concluded that anthropogenic activities play vital role in air quality of any urban centre," an official of the EPA said.

He said the regular monitoring had 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. The official said air quality data recorded on May 29 revealed that all parameters were within permissible limits of National Environmental Quality Standards.

"The 24 hour average of NO2 was 25.30 g/m3and SO2 was 9.08 g/m3 against the NEQS of 80 and 120 g/m3, while the concentration of Particulate Matter of size 2.5 microns was 27.68 g/m3 against 35 g/m3 standard," he said. The official said the anthropogenic activities played a vital role in ensuring good quality of air in any urban centre.