Hi everyone! This week, we have Ukraine, the second last country I will be covering in this blog. In this post and the next, I will be covering material before the Russian-Ukrainian invasion. I will cover how the invasion has an effect on pollution patterns in my third post!
Regardless, let’s look at Ukraine’s current air quality. If you look at the image below, there are very few monitoring stations in eastern Europe, as compared to western Europe:
Is this an accurate representation of what pollution is really like in Ukraine? Unfortunately not. Pehchevski explains that there are many reporting errors on emissions data in many of the cities in the country. As a result, locals have had to take it upon themselves to fill up this information gap, by creating a wide network of citizen-installed monitoring stations that measure particular matter in the air. According to the IAMAT, data on Kyiv shows that Ukraine has consistently high levels of air pollution. This is largely due to aged industrial infrastructures, coal mining, vehicle mining, and forest fires.
According to the National Geographic, Mariupol, Ukraine’s port city, is a war zone. It is one of the most polluted cities in Europe. Locals have shared that oftentimes, the smoke that hovers the skies is not only grey, but sometimes orange too, and it emits a very sour smell. As such, many couples who wish to have children have been advised to move elsewhere. In Mariupol, PM2.5 concentration levels can be as much as 50 times higher than the recommended maximum by the World Health Organization. As we have learnt in class and through my previous blogposts, these particulate matter are very dangerous because their tiny size allows them to pass through our bloodstreams and give us cancer, heart diseases, dementia, and all sorts of suffering. Air pollution is so bad, that it can lead to soil contamination, due to the deposition of heavy metals that cause adverse health effects.
Energy generation contributes to as much as 30% of the air pollution in Ukraine. This is because 70% of Ukraine’s primary energy consumption comes from fossil fuels. Fossil fuel plants can emit all kinds of pollutants, but mainly nitrous oxides, sulphur dioxide, and dust, as we have learnt early on in the module’s seminars. Some local scholars have suggested that to prevent people from falling ill from exposure to air pollution, citizens should have a device outside their windows to assess air quality information. Will this really be effective? Even if locals were quick to visit the hospital to get their health conditions assessed, will they be protected from air pollution? It was such a sketchy claim, that I had to add it into my post. What do you think? In the next post, I plan to uncover academic articles on Ukraine’s air pollution, but also some work on Chernobyl. And just to reiterate again, I will account for the Russian-Ukrainian invasion in the post after that!
See you in the next one! ✿
References
Gardiner, B. (2021) Inside a Ukrainian War Zone, Another Fight Rages – for Clean Air. 30 November. National Geographic. Available from: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/inside-a-ukrainian-war-zone-another-fight-ragesfor-clean-air [Accessed: 21 March 2022].
IAMAT (2020) Ukraine General Health Risks: Air Pollution. 16 April. Available from: https://www.iamat.org/country/ukraine/risk/air-pollution#:~:text=In%20accordance%20with%20the%20World,annual%20mean%20concentration%20of%20PM2.&text=Available%20data%20indicates%20that%20Kyiv%20has%20consistently%20high%20levels%20of%20air%20pollution. [Accessed: 21 March 2022].
IQAir (2022) Air Quality in Ukraine. 21 March. Available from: https://www.iqair.com/ukraine [Accessed: 21 March 2022].
Pehchevski, D. (2020) Ukraine’s Dangerous Air Pollution Problems in Desperate Need of Solutions. 19 October. Bankwatch Network. Available from: https://bankwatch.org/blog/ukraine-s-dangerous-air-pollution-problem-in-desperate-need-of-solutions [Accessed: 21 March 2022].
UNDP (2021) Satellite Data Monitors Air Pollution From Space During COVID-19, Helps Inform Policymakers. 12 February. Reliefweb. Available from: https://reliefweb.int/report/ukraine/satellite-data-monitors-air-pollution-space-during-covid-19-helps-inform-policymakers [Accessed: 21 March 2022].