Guangzhou (CNS) -- The Guangzhou Environmental Protection Bureau announced Tuesday that the city is carrying out a PM2.5 supervision plan and instituting regular reports of this air pollution data for the public, ahead of the national strategy to realize this more rigorous level of disclosure on emmissions.
PM2.5 refers to airborne particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers which mainly results from human activity. The national plan specifies China's three most industrialized cities - Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong - are required to reach this reporting level by 2016.
The inclusion of PM2.5 completes a more accurate and precise picture of the extent of air pollution in a city, especially in hazy weather. It is also a more solid base with which to associate data on lung cancer and death rates.
Guangzhou enjoyed fine air 98.8 percent of the time during the first 11 months of this year, reported an official representing the authority at the press conferencee. The city is benefiting from three years of steady effort that includes regulating 12,860 industrial projects that influence its air quality, and encouraging wider applications of clean energy sources, and setting up a dense network of supervision stations to precisely and promptly collect air quality data.