Air pollution levels in Chinese cities

[dmccarroll16]

Hi All,

I've spent a few hours Googling this, but haven't been able to find much. I'm looking for data on comparative air pollution levels for Chinese cities. Ideally, this would be a table that listed all medium-thru-large cities in China - in other words, hundreds of cities.

Does anyone know of such a resource? An English-language version would be best, but I'd be willing to do the work needed to translate a Chinese-language table.

Thanks in advance,

Douglas

[AxelManbow]

It sounds like this http://datacenter.mep.gov.cn/TestRunQian/dairy_forecast_en.jsp is the resource you're looking for, or at least the closest I know of.

[xianhua]

My apologies if this is already obvious to you, but you’ll ideally need to consult some academic journals for an independent and in-depth analysis on the subject.

I recently wrote an essay, as part of my Masters, on pollution in East Asia, and found ‘Air Pollution in mega cities in China’ to be pretty useful. I would post it here, but by doing so, would probably simultaneously break the house rules/university rules and vex the author/s by making their research publicly available. So I won’t.

However, this particular article is available for purchase on scienedirect.com (along with others on the subject). You could also search Google Scholar which will direct you to the relevant website.

Edited November 10, 2009 at 11:45 AM by xianhua

[dmccarroll16]

AxelManbow - Thank you very much for your response. The page that you directed me to is an immense leap over what I'd been able to find with all my searching.

xianhua - Thank you also. The article you mentioned costs $32 so I'm afraid I'm going to have to pass on it for now, but I really appreciate your responding. Perhaps someone Googling on this subject will find this thread and make use of your tip.

[Daan]

This, although not academic, might also be of interest.

[dmccarroll16]

Thanks, Daan. Yes, interesting.

[renzhe]

dmccarroll, it might be worth checking your local university library, or some other library carrying scientific journals.

Often, they will have access to online journals, and have paper copies that you can photocopy. This is a somewhat cumbersome, but free and legal way of accessing scientific publications.

If you have a friend who is a university student, he/she might be able to help.

[jobin]

let me ask this for those folks who have investigated reports of air pollution in china: if this data is collected by the chinese authorities do how can you have any belief in the accuracy of the data? years ago, i read, that when the summer temps approached 100 F, in BJ, the city bosses would order the weather man to say only 99F, because once 100 recorded, the factory workers could leave for the day, too hot.

now any 'bad' pollution data will reflect poorly on the bosses city, thus he may or certainly would re-educate the scientist to modity towards a better report. i just can't trust the CCP, but maybe you can.

[AxelManbow]

@jobin - a good point. The level of mistrust varies with the listener.

For Beijing at least the US embassy/consulate run a Twitter account with their own air analysis every hour http://twitter.com/beijingair . It might be interesting to contrast with official data for Beijing.

For Dalian at least the high/low seems to have a spookily default 31/51 reading, but in my experience reads high when the pollution is bad and low when the air is fresh.

[roddy]

The measurements would (I'm making some assumptions here, but I think I'm right) be from the Ministry of Environmental Protection which would if anything have an interest in playing up pollution in order to help build their own empire. In reality local government is likely to have some influence, but I suspect they're more inclined to use it in, eg, influencing environmental impact reports for new factories. I'd say the day to day figures are probably accurate for what they are - but as has been pointed out, the most dangerous particles aren't covered, and there may also be other tricks played - ie, selective placement of testing stations.

If I remember correctly, when the MEP was still SEPA the local offices were subordinate to the local government, rather than the next SEPA bureau up the line. That's obviously not ideal. I'm not sure if SEPA's promotion to ministry status changed that.

[gato]

If I remember correctly, when the MEP was still SEPA the local offices were subordinate to the local government, rather than the next SEPA bureau up the line. That's obviously not ideal. I'm not sure if SEPA's promotion to ministry status changed that.

Not yet, unfortunately. See the article below.

http://www.sachina.edu.cn/Htmldata/news/2009/03/5088.html

《财经》杂志：环评审批重新分级

2009年3月4日 13:01 《财经》杂志

对此，刘贵云解释说，目前环保部与各地环保部门并不属于“垂直管理”模式，只是“业务指导”关系。因此，发现违规情况后，环保部往往也只能向地方政府提出处罚建议，并不能直接进行处罚。

[james_moat]

Well, look at websites such as this:

http://www.amfic.eu/bulletin/index.php?region=bj&type=7&date=20091108〈=0

European, and gives useful tracking data for particulate and ozone matter in Shanghai, Beijing, and used to do other places also.

At the end of the day, Shanghai is significantly better than Beijing overall. I find Beijing appalling about 65% of the time, and even on a clear visible day, the air is still highly polluted many times more than that of London.

You want somewhere that's not in the head-wind from factory output, so avoid Beijing.

[james_moat]

SEPA and the rest use dubious pollution measurement systems, and discount many other chemicals or particles that, in Europe in particular, we take into account when measuring to what extent the air is dirty.

http://twitter.com/BeijingAir

details the American embassy's point of view, but I suspect it only uses one machine for measuring.

Keep in mind that air is like water, chemicals distribute quite nicely, so walking near a road or walking in a Beijing Hutong isn't actually going to make a whole lot of difference to what you are breathing. It's winter now, so the pollution gets worse in many places due to atmospheric conditions.

I plan to leave soon, the health risks associated with some cities with higher pollution levels simply is not worth it in the long term.

[jobin]

To james moat, and others: i have never been able to read the twitter stuff on my computer, always blocked. if you are in china, how is reading twitter where you are?> and if you know this is blocked in china, why post the address here? yea, i agree, the air can be lousy, but the food is much better than in usa. many more vegetable choices, and fruits much cheaper, plentiful and a greater variety. seems so much of life is choice, choice and more of it.

[adrianlondon]

Not everyone on these forums lives in China, and some of those who do have the technology to get around blocks.

Life is all about choices, you're right, and I think all people are doing here is trying to get accurate information so that an informed choice can be made.

[imron]

if you are in china, how is reading twitter where you are?

See this thread. Some of those suggestions are no longer relevant, but there is plenty of information there that should help you get around the block. As for why post blocked links, many members aren't in China but might still be interested in the links and also, getting around the blocks is reasonably trivial.

[roddy]

Off topic posts removed - if you want to discuss the block and how to beat it, see the topic Imron links to.