Published 24.02.2023 The Central Asian Conference on Air Quality is being held in Astana on February 22-23. The purpose of the event is to improve the capacity of public authorities to improve air quality, as well as to strengthen cooperation between Central Asian countries on monitoring and improving air quality.
The conference was attended by representatives of government agencies, non-governmental organizations, invited experts and activists. Director of the Department of Environmental Monitoring of RSE "Kazhydromet" Ainur Ortbayeva and Head of the Environmental Monitoring Department of RSE "Kazhydromet" Galiya Amirova made presentations in the section "Air quality in Kazakhstan" and took part in a discussion on air quality issues.
RSE "Kazhydromet", as an enterprise engaged in monitoring atmospheric air in Kazakhstan, told about the work being carried out, dwelt in detail on the problems of monitoring air quality and pollutants. Since 2018, Kazhydromet has launched the AirKZ mobile application for monitoring atmospheric air quality, the SILAM air quality forecasting model has also been developed, implemented and is successfully operating https://www.kazhydromet.kz/vc/silam/
Currently, monitoring of atmospheric air quality in Kazakhstan is carried out in 69 localities at 170 posts, of which 47 are manual sampling and 130 are automatic. There are also 15 mobile laboratories. With the help of stationary posts, priority pollutants such as PM2.5, PM10, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and ozone are determined. In industrial areas, specific pollutants such as phenols, formaldehydes, hydrogen sulfide and heavy metals are monitored. In 2021, Kazhydromet RSE acquired 30 new stations at its own expense for the purpose of 100% monitoring of the territory of Kazakhstan, including settlements where no observations were previously carried out.