Report
Urban air quality management
Asian Development Bank
2006
Abstract
Indicators of air quality (AQ) in the largest cities of Asia show that although many of these cities are among the most polluted in the world, AQ in many cities has generally been improving over the past few years. To improve AQ further, Asian cities must respond to the combined pressures of rapid growth in urban population, transport, economic development, and energy consumption. Asia is expected to account for most of the growth in world economic activity to 2025. Asia currently has about one billion people living in urban areas, and this number is growing at an average of 4% per year.
The major sources of air pollution in cities in Asia are vehicles, large stationary sources such as power stations and other major industries, small stationary sources such as domestic sources and small industries, and area sources such as open burning. Introduction Fine particulate matter (PM), or particles with diameter not more than 2.5 microns (PM2.5), clearly presents the greatest health risk for air pollutants in ambient air—estimated to cause 520,000 premature deaths and more than 4 million years of lives lost annually in Asia (Cohen et al. 2005). The projected increases in ozone concentrations in East Asia may lead to substantial crop losses and damage to natural areas in the near future. Acid deposits and other pollutants also present health and environmental challenges in some countries.
Despite these challenges, the strong economic growth of many Asian economies is providing the resources necessary to meet the costs of effective air quality management (AQM), fuel changes, emissions control technologies, industrial restructuring, and modernization of transport systems.
Details
- Title
- Urban air quality management
- Authors/Creators
- F. Murray (Author/Creator)C. Huizenga (Author/Creator)M. Ajero (Author/Creator)H. Fabian (Author/Creator)
- Publisher
- Asian Development Bank; Manilla
- Identifiers
- 991005541995507891
- Copyright
- © 2006 Asian Development Bank and the Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities (CAI-Asia) Center
- Murdoch Affiliation
- School of Environmental Science
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Report
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