Global Courant 2023-05-21 15:30:00
SINGAPORE — The need for a common indicator to monitor air quality in Southeast Asia has become more urgent, with drier weather conditions and the likelihood of the warmer El Nino weather phenomenon developing in the coming months.
This call from experts comes as Singapore will hold talks from June 7-8 with ASEAN members Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand to develop a second roadmap for cross-border nebula cooperation.
Associate Professor Helena Varkkey of the Department of International and Strategic Studies at Universiti Malaya described the development of a common indicator to track air quality in the region as low-hanging fruit.
ASEAN members should collectively agree on which indicator to use, she said. “It is important that there is a uniform number to indicate air quality across the region, not like now where the number for Singapore and Johor Bahru, for example, can be very different,” she added.
Since there are currently no international guidelines on how to calculate air quality indices, ASEAN countries have adapted different index systems according to their needs and circumstances.
For example, Singapore uses the Pollutant Standards Index (PSI), Malaysia uses the Air Pollution Index and Thailand uses the Air Quality Index (AQI).
This makes it incorrect to compare air quality based on one index with that calculated based on another index that has a different methodology.
Prof Varkkey, an expert in environmental politics and governance, is one of several independent consultants from Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia who contributed to a revision of the first roadmap, which focused on strategies for achieving a haze-free South East Asia from 2016 to 2020.
The review called for more coordination between countries, as well as quantifiable indicators to measure progress.
These indicators include a reduction in the size of cross-border mist pollution; an increase in the number of days with good or moderate air quality in terms of the PSI or AQI; and a reduction in hotspots to ensure a lower risk of transboundary haze under the Asean Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for haze.
The SOP describes common alarm levels and associated actions to monitor and respond to the fire and haze situation in the region.
But air quality scientist Erik Velasco said the measurements in the ASEAN countries are “based to a greater or lesser extent on the air quality index used in the United States, but each has its idiosyncrasies.”
In Singapore, where the PSI is used, monitoring stations across the island measure concentration levels of particulate matter (PM10), particulate matter (PM2.5), sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone and carbon monoxide. PM2.5 was the dominant pollutant during periods of transboundary haze.
Over a 135-day period from January 1 to May 15, 2022, and the same period in 2023, the 24-hour PSI was in the “good” to “moderate” range on all days.
But around the same time period, lower Mekong sub-region countries – Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand – as well as Malaysia experienced periods of haze due to dry weather conditions and the burning of agricultural waste.
