Taiwan hopes to cooperate further with NASA on developing a satellite to monitor air quality, Minister of Environment Peng Chi-ming (彭啟明) said yesterday at the opening ceremony of a two-day workshop on cross-border air pollution hosted by the ministry in Taipei.
Hopefully collaboration with NASA would continue and the ministry and the Taiwan Space Agency (TASA) can launch a satellite to monitor air pollution, Peng said.
The data such a satellite could gather would play an important role regionally and globally to monitor air pollution and its spread, he said.
Photo: Chen Chia-yi, Taipei Times
The 2024 Seven Seas Program and Gaoping Experiment International Workshop is being attended by representatives from countries including South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia and Bangladesh.
Taiwan has been collaborating with NASA and Asian countries on cross-border air pollution monitoring since the beginning of this year, the Ministry of Environment said.
From February to March, NASA research aircraft collected data over southern Taiwan four times as part of the 7-SEAS (South East Asian Studies) project studying climate interactions from Taiwan to Southeast Asia.
Results published yesterday showed that the air quality in southern Taiwan is a result of not only local pollution, but also highly affected by atmospheric circulation and transnational spread.
Taiwanese academics at the workshop shared 3D analyses of air pollution sources and pollutant concentrations in the Kaohsiung-Pingtung area based on the NASA data.
The research project would help Taiwan understand the distribution of ozone and volatile organic compounds, as well as how Taiwan’s topography affects their spread, said Lin Neng-huei (林能暉), a professor of atmospheric sciences at National Central University.
The research would provide more understanding about the effect of pollutants from foreign sources on Taiwan’s air quality, Lin said.
On March 13, pollution from abroad and a dust storm led to monitoring stations recording air quality levels three times higher than usual, he said, citing NASA’s data.
More than half of the pollution on that day could have come from abroad, he added.
Taiwan’s air quality is comparable to that of Japan and South Korea, while levels of harmful pollutants are much lower than in the other two nations, Peng said.
Unlicensed factories also contribute to pollution, meaning there is a need for increased monitoring and regulation, he said.
As pollution exists throughout the atmosphere and a large portion comes from abroad, it is necessary to work with other countries on this issue, he said.
Additional reporting by CNA
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