DAVAO CITY, Philippines — The Department of Environment and Natural Resources said the air quality in Davao is still “good and fair” compared to other cities in the country.
Engr. Nestor Patnugot, DENR’s environment monitoring and enforcement division chief, in a press conference on Monday said that such finding was based form the latest air quality data from 2013 to 2015.
“We are luckier than Metro Manila and Cebu because our quality is still good and fair,” Patnugot said.
Patnugot said the air quality index has six levels: best, good, fair, unhealthy, very unhealthy, and acutely unhealthy.
“Davao is still at good and fair,” Patnugot added.
Patnugot said most of the air pollution in the city comes from motor vehicles.
“The point sources which include those establishments using smokestacks, and the mobile sources; the vehicles which is 70 percent of our air pollution comes from motor vehicles,” Patnugot said.
Patnugot also explained the new standard of measuring air quality which is called the PM10 or Particulates Matter 10.
“It is expressed as parameters such as PM10 or Particulates Matter 10. If a seed of grain is at 100 micrometers, divide that by 10, that is PM10, which is what [the size of particles] we breathe,” Patnugot said. (davaotoday.com)
