Experts to assess daily air quality at Olympics

By Li Xinran  |   2008-6-20  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

BEIJING has hired overseas environment experts to join a 12-member panel for air pollution monitoring, forecasting and assessment during the upcoming Olympic Games, the Beijing News reported yesterday.

The panel will comprise members from China and abroad including experts from Italy and the United States.

The city will deliver daily air quality forecasts as well as projections for the next three days or even a week, said Tang Xiaoyan, head of the panel.

Beijing will also impose stricter controls over pollution in bad weather, Tang added.

Monitoring was launched on June 1, based on 27 inspection locations around the city as well as 18 temporary stations at Olympic venues, according to the environmental watchdog for China's capital.

Beijing has also introduced a new forecasting system to predict the air quality at each Olympic venue 72 hours in advance.

"In our forecast, we divide the city into one-square-kilometer grids which includes Olympic venues," said Wang Zifa, a research fellow at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the developer of the system.

The new system can assess how pollutants flow in the air, what kind of physical changes and chemical reactions they undergo, and what secondary pollutants and their density are produced, according to Wang.

The forecasts will give environmental protection authorities enough time to take emergency measures in case of extreme weather conditions, such as continuous days of little wind which are unfavorable for the dispersion of pollutants, Xinhua news agency reported.

Beijing has spent more than 120 billion yuan (US$17.3 billion) on controlling air pollution since 1998.

The city has expanded public transport, tested a temporary traffic ban that will be adopted during the Games and relocated polluting factories, according to Xinhua. Surrounding areas are helping the capital achieve its anti-pollution goals.