Monitor to help analyse pollution
An air quality monitoring system may finally be materialising in the Kingdom’s capital, following a donation of a monitor to the Ministry of Environment last week. Minister of Environment Say Sam Al on April 24 confirmed that the ministry has received the monitor, which detects harmful airborne particles called PM2.5, from the Japan-based Asia Center for Air Pollution Research. According to Heng Nareth, director-general of environmental protection at the ministry, the monitoring is a first for the government. “From now on, we can get real-time data [on air quality], and we can evaluate the situation in Phnom Penh,” he said. Nareth added that the monitor, installed at the top of the ministry’s building, is already recording data.“Data has already been recorded [but] we have not yet connected [the monitor] to the server,” he said, adding that the information collected will eventually be made available online.
