Fair to good
City keeps air quality index level
AMID the booming industry and development happening in the city, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources - Environmental Management Bureau ( DENR- EMB 11) reported that the city maintained its air quality index level from "fair to good", citing that the city is still far to unhealthy level as compared to other big cities in the country.
Japerneo Ylagan, EMB Air Quality Monitoring unit head, said during yesterday's I- Speak media forum at the Davao City Engineer's Office ( CEO) Conference Room that the city sustained the safe level of air quality based on their regular monitoring.
However, he said that once the air pollution will not be controlled there is a possibility that it will get worse as years pass by.
Based on the emission inventory conducted last 2015, around 70 percent of the pollutant come from mobile sources that
and these are smokebelching vehicles, 20 percent from stationary sources which refer to any building or immobile structure, facility or installation which emits or may emit any air pollutant, and 10 percent from area sources or the residences.
"If the pollution from mobile sources, stationary sources is not controlled, there is a possibility that the level will increase," Ylagan said.
The air quality index has six levels: best, good, fair, unhealthy, very unhealthy, and acutely unhealthy.
Ylagan added that they are using pollutants, which are particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, lead and ozone, as the criteria to verify air quality.
The microgram per normal cubic meter ( ncm) in the city must be below 150 to be considered as fair beyond that, it is unhealthy already. The guideline values of good is 0- 54 while fair is 55- 150 and Davao City is in between at around 80.
Their manual monitoring systems are spread throughout the city and these are located in Toril in front of District Hall, Davao Memorial Park Phase 2, one in V. Mapa Street in front of Barangay Hall near Davao Christian High School and in Villa Amparo, Ilang. These stations require physical documents while their automatic stations are capable of sending data online to national and these are located inside Calinan National High School and in Davao International Airport.
The manual station generates weekly data on the quality of air in its area with a four- kilometer scale of representative or radius while the automatic provides real time update with 50 kilometer radius.
For real time monitoring, the public may download their mobile app Philippine Air Quality index or visit their website.
Davao City, in celebration of the Clean Air Month in November, will be awarded as Clean Air City on November 6 in a ceremony while Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte- Carpio will be feted as Clean Air Champion by a non- government organization.
The city was chosen because of the ordinances it has passed that protects the air quality such as the anti- belching ordinance, anti- smoking and the firecracker ban that are strictly implemented by the local government.