US shuts down global air quality monitoring

The Trump administration has ended more than a decade’s worth of global air quality public data collection.

Since 2008, the United States embassies and consulates in over 60 countries collected and reported on air quality data and published it to a website called AirNow, run by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It was also published on an app called ZephAir that was managed by the State Department.

However, a spokesperson from the department has said that due to budget cuts they are no longer able to publish the data.

A report by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists states “thousands of datasets have been removed from federal websites”.

Meaningful monitoring

According to The New York Times, the outdoor air quality data has played a large part in supporting international research, helped thousands of foreign workers determine if it was safe to go outside, and in some countries has even prompted air quality improvements.

The monitoring initially launched in 2008 in Beijing, China, when a device to monitor air pollutants was installed on the US Embassy rooftop. When the numbers soared to 20 times the limit recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2010, the program drew international attention and eventually prompted the Chinese government to set up its own monitoring system.

China and Beijing have since made significant changes to improve the city’s outdoor air quality. In a report titled A Review of 20 Years’ Air Pollution Control in Beijing, fine particle levels in Beijing reportedly fell by 35 per cent between 2013–2017.

The loss of this data is set to cause ripples across the world. Many third-world countries that were unable to monitor air quality conditions relied on the data collected by the US.

A huge loss

According to a paper published in 2022 by Akshaya Jha, Associate Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University, and Dr Andrea La Nauze, Associate Professor, Economics at Deakin University, Department of Economics: “over 4 million premature deaths per year are attributed to air pollution, most of which are in low- and middle-income countries where residents do not have access to reliable information on air quality”.

“We found that when US embassies started putting air quality readings from their monitors on social media, air quality improved relative to cities that didn’t have embassy monitors,” Dr La Nauze says.

“This improvement was about 2-4 micrograms per cubic metre per year (or about 10 per cent of the average level of pollution before the embassy monitoring was made public). This was happening in cities with very little or no other reliable sources of air quality data.

“If we take the best science on the likely impacts of pollution reductions on premature mortality, the posts would have saved about 303 lives per year in each city. We also found that Google searches for terms related to air quality increased, suggesting the public were much more aware of air quality than previously.”

Dr La Nauze believes this loss of data will have the biggest impact in cities that have no other source of reliable air quality data.

“A lot of people have told us that they used the embassy monitor readings daily – without information, the consequences of poor air quality for health are likely to be worse.

“We might also expect governments and industry in those locations to feel less pressure to tackle air pollution and air quality itself may decline.”

However, there is some light at the end of the tunnel. Dr La Nauze says there are other initiatives, like the EPIC Air Quality Fund, that are working to fill gaps in air quality monitoring around the globe – and their efforts are now more important than ever.