Western Cape adopts new Air Quality Management Plan and invests R10million in its Air Quality Monitoring Network.
The Western Cape Government’s Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning recently adopted the Western Cape Air Quality Management Plan (2021 – 2025), which progressively realises our vision for “Clean and healthy air for all in the Western Cape”.
Anton Bredell, Western Cape Minister of Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning said: “This Plan comes at a time when climate change is recognised as a global emergency affecting the environment and humans.”
Bredell said greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution are integrally related, as both have similar origins and solutions and may influence each other through complex interactions in the atmosphere. The Western Cape Air Quality Management Plan (2021 – 2025) therefore not only places an emphasis on the management of air quality in the Province, but also the link between air pollution and climate change and provides for actions to reduce greenhouse gases and its associated carbon footprint, in line with national and international requirements on climate change. Air quality legislative reform has also in recent years seen a shift towards responding to climate change mitigation, with the declaration of greenhouse gases as priority air pollutants, in terms of the National Environmental Management: Air Quality Act, in 2017.
“Importantly, the work done to monitor air quality in the province and the data collected in the process plays a crucial role in our long-term plans for a greener and sustainable environment, whilst contributing to the implementation of the Western Cape Climate Change Strategy: Vision 2050, currently being developed. That is why the Department has invested R10million since 2020 to modernize its Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Network, which had its first air quality monitoring station commissioned in March 2008,” Bredell said.
The Network has 12 air quality monitoring stations located across the province that measures air pollutants such as Sulphur Dioxide (SO2), Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), Carbon Dioxide (CO2), Carbon Monoxide (CO), Ozone (O3), Particulate Matter (PM), and Hydrogen Sulphide (H2S). Not all air pollutants are measured at all locations, as stations monitor air quality based on the presence of specific emission sources in an area, Dr. Joy Leaner, Director Air Quality Management at the Western Cape Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning said.
The Department has also partnered with the South African Weather Service, through the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, to ensure that the measured air pollutants at each location report in real-time to the South African Ambient Air Quality Information System (SAAQIS; https://saaqis.environment.gov.za/). Currently, nine of the Department’s air quality monitoring stations can report in real time to SAAQIS, while the remaining three will report in real time later this year, Leaner said.
The Western Cape Air Quality Management Plan (2021 – 2025) is released in terms of the National Environmental Management: Air Quality Act 39 of 2004. Originally adopted in 2010, and revised in 2016, this third iteration of the Plan can be downloaded at:
https://www.westerncape.gov.za/eadp/files/atoms/files/AQMP%202021_Web.pdf
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Contact:
Wouter Kriel
Spokesperson for Minister Anton Bredell
Western Cape Minister of Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning
079 694 3085