Air quality in large cities of Ukraine: indicators for the last days

Air quality in large cities of Ukraine: indicators for the last days

Olena Yatseno

There are no warnings about being on the street

In recent days, the state of atmospheric air in major cities of Ukraine - the Dnieper, Odessa and Kharkiv - was within normal limits. Small deviations from the normative indicators were recorded on June 29 in Lviv.

At least this is evidenced by the data provided by the Swiss platform for tracking the level of air pollution in cities IQair .

According to the resource, as of the morning of June 29, the air quality index in Lviv was 53, which indicates a deviation from the allowable value. This level of air pollution is characterized as average.

Experts recommend that people belonging to vulnerable groups reduce the load on the street, consume more fluids, and close windows. In general, air pollution in Lviv was recorded from midnight to eight in the morning.

However, an acceptable state of atmospheric air in the city was soon observed.

Meanwhile, no excesses of air pollutants were recorded in Kharkiv, Dnipro and Odesa. Air quality in these cities is characterized as good. The air quality indices on the portal do not exceed 50 - this means that there are no warnings about being on the street. Accordingly, there are no reasons to close the windows.

However, the indicators of each of these industrial cities, in contrast to Kyiv, are given on the portal with an asterix sign. She points out that there are no ground control stations in the city. The air pollution factor AQI is calculated on the basis of satellite data. So it turns out that these calculations may not be true.

It should be added that Odesa, Kharkiv and Dnipro, in addition to being industrial centers, near Kyiv are among the top cities in the world with the largest traffic jams. Among all megacities, Kyiv took the third place in the ranking. Not far behind the capital and Odesa, which was in sixth place. Kharkiv and Dnipro took the 12th and 25th positions in the list, respectively.

Given the large number of cars leaving the cities, the exhaust gases from which are a significant source of pollution, as well as the declining popularity of private road transport due to fuel shortages - this has affected air quality.

At the same time, due to enemy shelling and fires caused by them, as well as fires in ecosystems, harmful substances are released into the air.

In particular, on June 23, a large-scale fire broke out in a peat storage near Lviv. People complained en masse about the acrid smoke and stench in the area.

Before EcoPolitics reported that in Cherkasy they found harmful substances in the air and named the most polluted area.

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