Monitoring Air Pollution in Beijing, China

Beijing to put clean-air plan into action (He Dan, China Daily, Jan. 13, 2012)

Also discussed  here: Beijing releases key air pollution data (USA Today, Jan. 21, 2012)

And here: Beijing Municipal Environmental Monitoring Center (in Chinese)

And here: Beijing Municipal Environmental Monitoring Center (in English)

Today, the focus is on efforts by the municipal government in Beijing to both monitor and reduce local pollution sources, among which vehicle emissions are a major contributor like many other urban areas.  Beijing is a large city both in terms of population (19,612,368 in 2010) and area (16,801 km2) so that the 24 monitors to monitor PM10 and PM2.5 in future are about the same ratio one sees in Canada and the USA.  Even this is far from the monitor density needed to adequately estimate roadside emissions as, for example,  in the UK where  over 200 local authorities have declared over 500 Air Quality Management  Areas(AQMA).  Also noteworthy is the pledge to make public hourly air pollution in real time- another  indication of the seriousness taken of air pollution by governmental officials.

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