Air quality in Olympic zone keeps improving

AIR quality continues to improve in Zhangjiakou, one of the competition zones for the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.

The city ranked first in Hebei Province last year in terms of air quality, according to the Ecological Environment Bureau.

Located 200km northwest of Beijing, Zhangjiakou will host snowboarding, freestyle skiing, cross-country skiing, ski jumping, Nordic combined and biathlon competitions.

According to a government report on Zhangjiakou, its average air-quality index reached 4.11 in 2018, down by 0.07 year on year, and the average concentration of PM2.5, or fine particulate matter, was 29 micrograms per cubic meter, 2 micrograms less than that in 2017.

For five consecutive years, Zhangjiakou has been rated the city with the best air quality in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

Zhangjiakou is also set to be Beijing’s water conservation and ecological environment supporting area.

An unprecedented 400,000 hectares of trees were planted in Zhangjiakou last year, accounting for three-fifths of the total increase in Hebei Province.

Also 4,518 new energy buses were launched last year.

(Xinhua)