The air pollution reporting system used in Iran will get an update as soon as the Majlis ratifies changes proposed by the Department of Environment.
In a talk with ISNA, Shina Ansari, director of the DOE Environmental Monitoring Office outlined the proposed changes.
The national Air Quality Index is used by DOE and municipalities to communicate to the public how polluted the air is. The index categorizes the conditions according to a measure of polluting matters into good (0-50), moderate (51-100), unhealthy for sensitive groups (101-150), unhealthy (151-200), very unhealthy (201-300) and hazardous (301-500).
The methodology is an out-dated copy of standards set by the United States Environmental Protection Agency in 2012 which has since been updated several times. The DOE changes are seemingly in line with the Clean Air Act.
The 35-article Clean Air Act drawn up by DOE is an integrated effort to help curb high air pollution levels in most urban areas where the majority of the population lives. It was passed by the Majlis in July 2017, albeit after gathering dust for more than a year in the previous legislature.
But as Ansari said, the proposed update focuses largely on changing terminology used by the weatherman.
She says that as per the current reporting system when the AQI is between 51 and 100, the air quality is declared 'moderate'.
"The DOE argument is that when the index is between 51 and 100, ground-level ozone particles can cause health problems for a selected group…so it cannot and should not be called ‘moderate’. Rather such conditions [loosely speaking] must fall into the ‘acceptable’ category,” Ansari said.
Soon after the proposed changes were publicized, environmentalists censured it as trivial at best. Independent experts and observers believe standards need to be overhauled and changing terminologies when reporting weather conditions will do little, if anything, to help improve air quality, the environment or people’s lives. Most say after all “what’s in a name?”
Air pollution is one of the major problems in most Iranian cities like Tehran which causes serious health problems for many. The fourth cause of premature death worldwide, the killer air pollution claimed 12,000 innocent lives in Iran in 2017, the Ministry of Health reported.
Environmentalists believe that substantial upgrades in regulations and enhancing monitoring equipment together with operational measures are the only key to easing the problem.
