EAST-WEST DIVIDE: The areas with the worst air quality in Taiwan were Kinmen, Kaohsiung and Matsu, while the best were Taitung, Hualien City and Yilan
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By Wu Po-husan and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer
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Taiwan’s air quality improved last year, with the annual average concentration of harmful fine-particle matter, or PM2.5, falling to 13.3 micrograms per cubic meter (mg/m3), from 17.5mg/m3 in 2024, a report released on Tuesday by IQAir Group showed.
Taiwan’s ranking among the world’s most polluted countries and regions improved by 20 places, moving to 74th from 54th in 2024. Taiwan’s highest average PM2.5 concentration since 2018 was 20.2mg/m3 in 2023.
The ranking are from worst to best, with Pakistan at No. 1 with a PM2.5 concentration of 67.3mg/m3 and French Polynesia at No. 143 with 1.8mg/m3.
The sky in Tainan is pictured on Dec. 26 last year.
Photo: Tsai Wen-chu, Taipei Times
The Switzerland-based IQAir report drew data from monitoring stations across 9,446 cities in 143 countries and territories, showing that global air quality declined last year due to the impact of severe wildfires and pollution from sectors including fossil fuels and agriculture.
Department of Atmospheric Environment Director-General Huang Wei-ming (黃偉鳴) said that Taiwan’s average PM2.5 concentration was 12.8mg/m3, the same as 2024.
The discrepancy in official figures compared with the IQAir report is due to methodological differences, he said.
The department gathers air quality samples manually and adjusts the measurements to account for environmental factors, whereas IQAir, an air quality technology company, uses raw instrument readings for an average figure, Huang said.
Taiwan’s air quality has improved fairly steadily, as fine particulate matter pollution levels last year have fallen 21 percent over the past six years, he said.
Taiwan’s five most polluted locations are Kinmen County (18.4mg/m3), Kaohsiung (17.2mg/m3), Lienchiang County (Matsu, 17.1mg/m3), Tainan (17mg/m3) and Chiayi City (15.5mg/m3), the IQAir report showed.
The areas with the best air quality were all on the east coast: Taitung County’s Guanshan Township (關山, 6.9mg/m3), Hualien City (7.5mg/m3) and Yilan County (9mg/m3).
Taipei’s average PM2.5 concentration for last year was 10.4mg/m3, the report showed.
The world’s 25 most polluted cities were all located in India, Pakistan and China, where industrial emissions, vehicle exhaust, dust storms and crop burning contributed to poor air quality, the IQAir report said.
Loni, India, was the most polluted city, with an annual average PM2.5 concentration of 112.5mg/m3, a nearly 23 percent increase from 2024 and more than 22 times the WHO’s 5mg/m3 guideline. Hotan, China, was ranked second with 109.6mg/m3.
The city with the best air quality was Nieuwoudtville, South Africa, with an annual average PM2.5 concentration of 1mg/m3.
The five most polluted countries were Pakistan, Bangladesh (66.1mg/m3), Tajikistan (57.3mg/m3), Chad (53.6mg/m3) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (50.2mg/m3).
Fourteen percent of global cities last year met the WHO annual guideline on PM2.5, down from 17 percent in the previous year, the report showed.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
