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Alarm system for air pollution adjusted
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SHANGHAI is to adjust its four-tier air pollution alarm system and will lower the criteria for activating the lowest blue color alarm, allowing anti-pollution measures to be triggered earlier.
Under the current system, used since 2014, the blue alarm is issued when the air quality index is forecast to be between 201 and 300, or heavily polluted, over the next 24 hours.
If that reading is expected to last for 48 hours, the alarm is raised to yellow. Once an alarm is issued, Shanghai will close some construction sites and suspend operation of some factories discharging pollutants.
The highest level of red alarm will be issued when the air quality index is forecast to be over 450, or severely polluted, for the next 24 hours, under which schools and kindergartens will be closed. Shanghai has not issued a red alarm in the past three years.
Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau chief Zhang Quan said the four-tier system would be adjusted to better serve citizens. According to Jiefang Daily, the new system may be announced this week, though the bureau said no date had yet to been set.
According to the paper, the adjusted system will lower the criteria for the activation of the blue alarm — it would be issued when there is moderate pollution (AQI between 151 and 200) or short-time heavy pollution is predicted in the next 24 hours, so that anti-pollution measures can be taken earlier to help.
Real-time density of the city’s major air pollutant tiny particle PM2.5 — tiny particles that are particularly hazardous to health — will also be considered when officials decide whether to issue the alarm, said the paper.
Corresponding measures would see adjustments too in the new system, according to the newspaper.
Shanghai’s worst air pollution is usually in winter due to poor dispersion conditions, as well as pollutants transferred into the city from neighboring provinces and by some central and northern China cities where heavy industry is located. The first blue alarm of this winter was issued last week when the AQI hit 227 on Monday morning.
Last December, Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau introduced “emergency measures” to better deal with air pollution in winter. Those measures included suspending outdoor operation at all the city’s construction sites within the Outer Ring region and banning trucks carrying muck from city roads.
The emergency measures were triggered when continuous air pollution or short-time heavy pollution is expected in Shanghai in the next 10 days.
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