The standard is higher than the truth: who and how underestimates the data on air quality in our cities

Journalists for Vostochnye Stories examined data on air quality in Russia and found out why monitoring services do not tell the truth about pollution, leaving millions of Russians to gasp.

It turns out that in 2014 the number of cities with a high level of pollution decreased by 2.5 times. However, such a sharp decrease in the number of polluted cities is associated not with an improvement in the environment, but with a weakening of standards. According to the calculations of Roshydromet, taking into account the stricter old standards, the high level of pollution in 2019 was in 98 cities, not 40.

In 2019, state observations of air pollution covered only one fifth of all Russian cities.

Another problem is that government monitoring services track very few substances. According to the review of the work of Roshydromet for 2020, no more than 34 different substances are measured within one monitoring zone. Moreover, the amount of pollutants in cities can reach several hundred.

Another problem is sampling frequency. Roshydromet measures air quality only a few times a day, although many enterprises make their main emissions at night.

So far, the situation is such that people in Russia are two or even three times more likely to die from air pollution than in developed countries. Out of 100 thousand deaths, dirty air accounts for:

In China - 60.5

In Ukraine - 59.3

In Belarus - 50.2

In Russia - 42.8

In Kazakhstan - 39.6

In Germany - 19.9

In the USA - 19.2

In the UK - 17.9

In Spain - 14.4

In France - 11.9

Read the full version of the study here.