The list of settlements with a high level of air pollution included 12 cities, including industrial Kamianske, Kramatorsk, Kryvyi Rih and Dnipro.
Such data are contained in the report "Overview of the state of environmental pollution for the first half of 2024," compiled and published by the Central Geophysical Observatory named after Boris Sreznevsky according to the data of the network of observations of the national hydrometeorological service of Ukraine.
The assessment of the state of air pollution in Ukraine was carried out according to observations in 35 cities at 120 stationary posts of the monitoring network of hydrometeorological organizations. The observatory noted that observations of air pollution are currently not carried out in Mariupol, Lysychansk, Rubezhnoye and Severodonetsk, which are under occupation.
In the first half of 2024, in 12 cities of Ukraine: Kamianske, Kramatorsk, Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro, Lutsk, Odesa, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Lviv, Sloviansk, Vinnytsia and Kyiv – the level of air pollution according to the comprehensive index of atmospheric pollution (KIZA) was characterized as high (KIZA>7). An increased level of pollution was noted in 6 cities, and a low level in 17 cities.
Comprehensive index of air pollution in cities of Ukraine in the first half of 2024
Source: cgo-sreznevskyi.kyiv.ua.
The observatory found that compared to the same period last year, 10 cities saw a decrease in the level of atmospheric air pollution (according to KIZA), the most noticeable – in Mykolaiv, Kremenchuk, Rivne and Kyiv.
Among the leaders of the anti-rating, whose KIZA is significantly higher than other cities, there are traditionally industrial cities of the Dnipropetrovsk region: the situation in Dnipro is consistently bad, and Kamianske and Kryvyi Rih significantly worsened their indicators in the first half of 2024, and therefore even surpassed Dnipro in terms of air pollution.
In 13 cities of the country, the air quality has slightly deteriorated, the most – in Kryvyi Rih, Kamianske, Lutsk, and Kropyvnytskyi. In other cities of the country, the level of pollution has not changed significantly.
Kherson, Kramatorsk and Slovyansk were not compared with last year due to lack of data. But their appearance in the top 10 cities with the most polluted air indicates a significant impact of the war on the state of the air that the citizens breathe.
Infographic: facebook.com/savednipro.
In general, for Ukraine in the first half of 2024, the average concentrations of harmful substances exceeded the average daily maximum allowable concentrations (MPCs) of formaldehyde by 1.9 times, of nitrogen dioxide by 1.5 times; the average phenol content was at the level of 1.0 MPC s.d.
According to the average concentrations in the first half of the year, exceeding the MPC s.d. recorded from nitrogen dioxide in 22 cities, formaldehyde – in 19, suspended substances – in 10, phenol – in 7, hydrogen fluoride – in 3, carbon monoxide, soot, ammonia – in 2, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide – in one city.
Earlier, EcoPoilitic wrote, that in September, the Kyiv City State Administration twice already reported about the deterioration of the air condition in the capital due to large-scale fires in the ecosystems around the city and unfavorable weather conditions.
Also, EcoPolitic told that ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih PJSC reimbursed more than UAH 10 million in damages to the environment due to emergency emissions into the air.
