Average concentrations of PM2.5 in industrial parks were higher last year than in 2016, but it was likely not due to an increase in pollutants, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said.
The agency has air quality monitoring stations in five industrial parks, four of which showed a yearly increase in average concentrations of PM2.5 — fine particulate matter that measures 2.5 micrometers or smaller.
The poorer air quality resulted from less rainfall, rather than the generation of more pollution, EPA Department of Air Quality Protection Director Wu Sheng-chung (吳盛忠) said.
“A higher density of PM2.5 does not necessarily mean an increase in pollution, because it is also affected by wind, temperature and rainfall,” Wu said, citing the monitoring station in Kaohsiung’s Cianjhen District (前鎮) as an example.
The station recorded an average PM2.5 concentration of 29.5 micrograms per cubic meter (mcg/m3) last year, up 6.4mcg/m3 from 2016, the biggest increase among the five industrial parks, EPA data showed.
However, the concentrations of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide — which help create PM2.5 particulates — averaged about the same levels in Cianjhen last year as the year before, suggesting that there was no year-on-year change in the amount of pollutants emitted, Wu said.
However, there was 1,850mm less rainfall in the area during the period, meaning there was less rain to wash away PM2.5, he said.
The dry weather also caused increases in average PM2.5 concentrations at industrial parks in Yunlin County’s Mailiao (麥寮) and Taixi (台西) townships, as well as Miaoli County’s Toufen City (頭份), Wu said.
The average concentration recorded at the Mailiao monitoring station was 27.8mcg/m3 last year, up 2.4mcg/m3 from 2016, while the station in Taisi recorded 25.7mcg/m3, an increase of 0.8mcg/m3.
In Toufen, the PM2.5 concentration averaged 20.1mcg/m3, 1.8mcg/m3 higher than the previous year.
The only industrial park that saw a decrease in PM2.5 concentration was in Changhua County’s Siansi Township (線西), which recorded a year-on-year decrease of 1.9mcg/m3 from 24.4mcg/m3 in 2016.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater