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The Governing Board has approved an agreement between the City Council, the University of Murcia and Emuasa that will allow the implementation of various technical and specific actions to anticipate and monitor air pollution in the municipality.

Thanks to this agreement, all the necessary information will be collected that will allow to predict episodes of contamination and thus act effectively to avoid or reduce them.

The object of the agreement has different actions that will be executed in phases.

The first of these will be to make a predictive model of air pollution that allows unfavorable situations that lead to increased pollution that may affect the health of citizens and the environment in general be known in advance.

Thanks to this, actions that try to mitigate the aforementioned impacts can be programmed.

With respect to the predictive model, in addition to the sources of emission of vehicle traffic, which condition the composition of the polluting species present in the air of any city, and particularly in Murcia, two other aspects must be considered: the geometry of the city ( breadth and orientations of the roads, pedestrian areas, "canyon" streets, parks and gardens ...) and meteorology, whose influence is decisive, as evidenced by the diversity of episodes that occur throughout the year, although those of The greatest impact takes place in stable atmospheric conditions, associated with thermal inversion phenomena, very frequent in autumn and winter.

To develop this predictive model, it is necessary to carry out eight pollutant measurement campaigns in one year, with the following characteristics:

Benzene is selected as a tracer pollutant, using passive sensors as a sampling system.

50 measurement points will be established in the area under study, 25 will remain fixed and another 25 will change position in each of the different campaigns.

The characteristics of each campaign are as follows:

1. They will have a duration of one week, from Monday to Monday, with two periods of measurement: from 8 in the morning of the initial Monday until 9 pm on Friday of the week in question (working period), and from 9 pm onwards. that Friday at 8 am on the following Monday (weekend period).

2. The weeks of selected samples will not have holidays and the probability of precipitation should be irrelevant.

3. In spring and summer there will be only one campaign in each season, while in autumn two will be scheduled and in winter four as it is the highest incidence of pollution in autumn and winter due to meteorological phenomena that adversely influence the dispersion of air pollutants

Subsequently, all these data will be included in a computer program that will serve to provide accurate predictive data to take the appropriate measures to improve air quality.

Another of the actions will be to provide the necessary scientific information for the location of a second Atmospheric Monitoring Station, within the regional network of the Autonomous Community, in the city of Murcia, in an area that is representative of the average pollution of the urban nucleus, equipped with the equipment for the capture and analysis of pollutants regulated by current legislation, as well as the meteorological sensors on which the transport, dispersion and transformation of atmospheric pollutants depends.

Currently working on determining the most suitable location to locate this station.

This station will be equipped with three automatic equipment for the measurement of the following gaseous pollutants regulated in ambient air: nitrogen oxides (NO and NO2), ozone (O3) and benzene, toluene and xylenes (BTX) and two material collection equipment PM10 and PM2.5 particulate and, if applicable, analytical balance for gravimetric determination of particulate matter retention filters.

The previous actions will provide a first information on the distribution of pollution in Murcia and will help to detect or interpret some atypical situations.

'Clean air' strategy

This agreement is part of the 'Clean Air' strategy, a global action plan that includes actions such as those included in the Climate Change Mitigation Strategy, the Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, the free pruning service to the huertanos to avoid burning agricultural, which we have set up in collaboration with ASAJA;

the gradual renewal of the bus fleet and acquisition of new vehicles powered by biofuels, hybrids or electric vehicles;

creation of deterrent parking lots;

periodic checks of gas emissions from vehicles in circulation, together with the Ecological Patrol of the Local Police (more than 1,000 vehicles per year);

pedestrianization of 252,000 m2 and 4 restricted traffic areas (267 streets);

the Greenway;

new network of bike lanes;

Electric Vehicle strategy;

2030 Forest Plan and sustainable lighting, among other measures.

It should also be remembered that Murcia is one of the few Spanish cities, together with Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Seville, Valencia and Zaragoza, which has a protocol of measures to be taken at the municipal level when episodes of air pollution are detected due to the overcoming of Allowed levels

Source: Ayuntamiento de Murcia / Foto: archivo