Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia Air Quality: PM 2.5 Off the Charts X(

Keep track of UB air now!

*AQI readings will depend on where the monitoring post is set up. It will be higher near areas of high traffic, and/or near ger districts

Air quality in Chinggis Square on 2 different days. Courtesy of Smart Air: https://www.facebook.com/smartairfilters/?fref=ts

I must admit: like a lot of Mongolians, I never suspected that the air quality in Mongolia was bad enough to be world-ranking. Further, I always looked at the rankings that are released by multiple researches, including the World Health Organization, as dubious. My logic was that Ulaanbaatar, while a cold city that needs to be heated constantly in the winter, could never reach the nebulous records that Beijing seems to set each year. How could UB, a city that does not process and produce close to anything what Beijing puts out, be among the worst cities for air pollution?

Well, I was wrong. When I went home for a couple weeks this month, I was astounded to find that the AQI for that day in a traffic-heavy part of town was above 1000.
X( <– death emoji.

AQI

A lot of us who live in China religiously check the Air Quality Index (AQI) to know what to expect for the day. AQI is the set standard on which we determine whether the air is “healthy” or “unhealthy.” Anywhere from 0-50 is considered “good.”

While once talking about the air quality with a student from France, she told me that if the AQI in her hometown ever reached 50 (which it seldom did), a red alert would be announced and residents told to keep inside. This may just be apocryphal, but it demonstrates clearly the difference between living in a developed and in an under developed county.

AQI in Ulaanbaatar, on the other hand, is currently hovering near 300.
X( <– death emoji again.

Here’s the full table for your perusal.

AQI	Air Pollution Level	Health Implications	Cautionary Statement (for PM2.5)
0 – 50	Good	Air quality is considered satisfactory, and air pollution poses little or no risk	None
51 -100	Moderate	Air quality is acceptable; however, for some pollutants there may be a moderate health concern for a very small number of people who are unusually sensitive to air pollution.	Active children and adults, and people with respiratory disease, such as asthma, should limit prolonged outdoor exertion.
101-150	Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups	Members of sensitive groups may experience health effects. The general public is not likely to be affected.	Active children and adults, and people with respiratory disease, such as asthma, should limit prolonged outdoor exertion.
151-200	Unhealthy	Everyone may begin to experience health effects; members of sensitive groups may experience more serious health effects	Active children and adults, and people with respiratory disease, such as asthma, should avoid prolonged outdoor exertion; everyone else, especially children, should limit prolonged outdoor exertion
201-300	Very Unhealthy	Health warnings of emergency conditions. The entire population is more likely to be affected.	Active children and adults, and people with respiratory disease, such as asthma, should avoid all outdoor exertion; everyone else, especially children, should limit outdoor exertion.
300+	Hazardous	Health alert: everyone may experience more serious health effects	Everyone should avoid all outdoor exertion

why? Why? Whyyy?

According to “A Study on Air Pollution in Ulaanbaatar City, Mongolia,” published online April 2014 in the Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection, [http://www.scirp.org/journal/gep
http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/gep.2014.22017] the main causes of air pollution include:

coal burning in gers
industrial boilers
dust emissions of construction
power plants
improved stoves
household heating systems
brick kiln operations
public and private transports
road re-suspension
fly ash re-suspension
garbage burning

Of these sources of air pollution, during the wintertime, the biggest cases of high AQI are smog in the ger districts, motor vehicles and power plants. Even more bad news, due to the geological location of Ulaanbaatar, the city between the four mountains, air pollutants become trapped near the ground in a phenomenon known as thermal inversion. This phenomenon is enhanced during the winter. Bad news for us.

Good thing we live in a democracy

…because that means we have the power to pressure the government into making the necessary changes. Children and the elderly suffer the most from these hazardous levels. Rate of pneumonia and respiratory illnesses, particularly in young children, have risen these past few years. Here’s what the government can enact immediately, as recommended by the study:

Efficiently improved power plant scrubbers;
Efficiently improved PP-4 electrostatic precipitators;
Use of flue gas desulphurization technologies for sulfur control in power plants;
Efficient NOx control in power plants;
Smoke-less coal for burning in ger districts;
Improved stoves for ger families;

Gasification and solar heaters for ger families;
Ash pond maintenance—brick making;
Reduction of local garbage burning;
Gasification of urban and solid waste;
Paved road dust reduction—sweepers;
Use of solar heaters for winter camping and housing;
Abolishing of small scale boilers for heating;
Promotion of public transportation;
Encouragement of vehicle restriction through license plate numbers;
Inspection and elimination of older and too old vehicles;
Transfer of garbage/waste burning factories to eastern part of the city.

Finally, I highly recommend reading the study, as well as getting air filters for your homes and air filter masks for when you’re outside and the AQI is above 200.