| Press
Release
PRD
Regional Air Quality Index to go public from tomorrow
The Environmental
Protection Bureau of Guangdong Province (GDEPB) and the Environmental
Protection Department (EPD) of the Hong Kong Special Administrative
Region announced that with the consent from both governments, the
Pearl River
Delta Regional Air Quality Index (RAQI) will be made public
on a daily basis starting from tomorrow (November 30).
Members of the
public can get access to the daily RAQI and the half-yearly regional
air quality reports from the GDEPB's website at http://www.gdepb.gov.cn
or EPD's website at http://www.epd.gov.hk.
A spokesman for
the EPD said that the RAQI was calculated and reported daily based
on the air monitoring data collected in the immediate past 24 hours
and that it would be reported at 4 pm each day, shortly after the
end of the daily air monitoring cycle from 2 pm of the previous
day up to 2 pm of the day of reporting.
The RAQI in five
gradings is to show the overall ambient air quality in the PRD region.
The lower the grading, the better the air quality will be. As for
the monitoring network, major air pollutants are respirable suspended
particulates (RSP), sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide
(NO2) and ozone (O3).
He noted that
the monitoring network was set up in accordance with the PRD Regional
Air Quality Management Plan agreed by the two governments in 2003.
It comprises 16 monitoring stations, 13 of which are in Guangzhou,
Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Zhongshan, Huizhou, Dongguan, Jiangmen,
Zhaoqing, Shunde, Huiyang, Panyu and Conghua, and three in Tsuen
Wan, Tung Chung and Tap Mun of Hong Kong.
The network will
provide comprehensive and accurate information on air quality in
the PRD region, which helps the two places to better analyse and
tackle the regional air pollution issue.
He also noted
that the RAQI and the existing Air Pollution Indices (API) currently
reported in Hong Kong and in individual mainland cities would serve
different purposes and therefore were complementary to each other.
The RAQI report provides the public with information on the overall
air quality across an extensive area under the PRD region, whilst
the APIs issued by individual cities report on the levels of the
most significant pollutant with greatest health risk to residents
in their respective local area.
At present, the
two governments have set up an expert group comprising representatives
of GDEPB and EPD to monitor the long-term trends and changes to
the regional air quality and evaluate the effectiveness of the improvement
measures. The PRD Regional Air Quality Management Plan has been
drawn up under which the Regional PRD Air Quality Monitoring Network
with 16 air quality monitoring stations is well put in place.
The two governments
have also been providing technical and enhancement training for
staff on both sides, exchanging technical know-how and exploring
the feasibility of introducing new technologies and improvement
measures.
According to
the "The Study on Air Quality in the PRD Region" conducted by the
two governments between 1998 and 2002, the problem of ozone, respirable
suspended particulates and nitrogen dioxide in the PRD region was
a regional air pollution problem.
The various measures
implemented by the two governments have to a certain extent contained
the air pollution of their respective areas and have brought improvements
to many local air pollution problems. However, there is a need to
enhance the effectiveness of these measures to deal with the broader
issues such as ozone and smog.
As such, the
two governments have reached a consensus to improve the air quality
of the PRD Region. A joint statement was issued on April 29, 2002
that the two governments were to enhance co-operation and to put
in place additional improvement measures in the region with a view
to reducing, on a best endeavour basis, the regional emissions of
sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, respirable suspended particulates
and volatile organic compounds by 40%, 20%, 55% and 55% respectively
by 2010, using 1997 as the base year.
End/Tuesday, November
29, 2005
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