Mar 08

Bad Air Quality in Thailand

By Richard Barrow Email

Monday 8th March, 2010 | 148 words | Category: General | 4 feedbacks »

It is probably not a good idea to venture outside at the moment if you are living in some areas of Bangkok, Ayutthaya, Chiang Rai, Lampang, Lumpoon, Maehongson, Nan, Phayao and Chiang Mai due to the bad air quality. You should also consider wearing face masks in Chachoengsao, Nonthaburi, Samut Prakan, Samut Sakhon and Saraburi. The chart above is released by the Pollution Control Department and shows the air quality index for yesterday. The column of interest is PM10. It's a measure of parts per million that are smaller than 10 microns and therefore able to lodge in the lungs. The acceptable maximum is 120. The locations which have dangerous levels are marked in red. You can check air quality for yourself at their website for Bangkok and the Regions of Thailand. Looks like we should all be heading south to the islands or even, apparently, to Pattaya in Chonburi!

Do you have any questions about Thailand? Maybe you are planning a holiday or just want to learn more about Thai culture. Have all of your questions answered for free at ThailandQA.com. These forums are part of the family friendly Paknam Web Network.

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Comment from: Paul Adams · http://cannonballjones.wordpress.com
Yay, glad to see Surat Thani coming in close to lowest on that chart. Traffic can sometimes be bad here but I guess we sometimes take it for granted just how nice a town it is...
09/03/2010 @ 14:54
Comment from: Matt
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I swear they are artificially keeping the Chiang Mai number low right now!
11/03/2010 @ 09:08
Comment from: Thailand Travel Deals · http://thailand-travel-deals.com
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Hmm I guess the measurements can be done on more or less polluted areas in a region and according to the news Chiang Mai have high levels of toxic in the air.

Better staying here on Samui i guess...
11/03/2010 @ 14:29
Comment from: Per Henrik Johansen · http://perhenrik.com
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PM10 measures particles in the air which can be inhaled by humans and the main source is traffic and industry. High concentration as seen in the table might be an exception I think, due to weather conditions perhaps. The fact that Chiang Mai is low could also indicate that the measurements stations is placed wrong, maybe?

I actually used this table to generate a kml file (http://www.perhenrik.com/download/aqi_thailand.kml - updates every day) to map the data. I track the AQI, but the script could easily be modified to show all variables or generate timeseries.
12/03/2010 @ 15:39

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