Recently, various media have reported that Vietnam is listed amongst the last ten countries with the worst air pollution in the world, according to the 2012 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) released during this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The annual study uses satellite data to measure air pollution concentrations and has been produced by researchers of Yale and Columbia universities.
As an expert who has studied the air environment for nearly a half – century, I believe that only half of the rating is true, because it is a need to evaluate more accurately these following aspects:
First of all, we have to distinguish between two types of air pollutants. They have different physical, chemical and biological characteristics. One type includes suspended particulate matter, fine particles PM10, PM5 and PM2.5. Another includes SO2, NO2, CO, petroleum vapors, etc…Environmental monitoring data over the years demonstrates that the actual ambient air in urban areas in Vietnam is mostly heavily contaminated by dust, but in term of other toxic pollutants such as SO2, NO2, CO, the air environment in Vietnam has not been contaminated, even it is better than many other cities in the world and region, such as Beijing, NewDeli, Bangkok etc ...;
Secondly, the heavy dust pollution occurred primarily in big cities, especially in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and the first class cities, such as Hai Phong, Nam Dinh, Viet Tri, Can Tho, Buon Ma Thuot, etc. .. except for Da Nang is ranked as one of the 10 environmentally sustainable cities of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in October 2011. In general, air quality in many medium and small sized urban areas and cities are still good. We often say that dust pollution in big cities in Vietnam is ranked the first or second in the world although we put a lot of effort into protecting and improving our environment in recent years. The reason, the environmental experts gave judgement that: when economic growth increases 2 times, environmental pollution level will increase 4 times if there is no appropriately environmental protection measure.
Over the last 20 years, the fast industrialization and urbanlization processes have led to many consequences, variety of pollutants are discharged into the air. However, thanks to environmental protection activities in urban areas, the air pollution in our country only increased by about 20% after 10 years. Air pollution seriously affect people's health, causing diseases related to the respiratory system, eyes, ears and skin. People can live without eating for 10 days, without dringking for 3 to 4 days, but can die if they do not breath for 3 to 5 minutes.
The main urban air pollution sources in Vietnam are as follows:
Firstly, planning for urban development has not fully considered the environmental protection requirements, such as construction sites are everywhere, massive and prolonged; lack of green trees in residential areas; industrial and handicraft facilities are located in the inner cities, intermixes with residential areas; land for traffic does not meet the minimum requirement, etc.
Secondly, the construction and repair works in urban areas without adequate environmental protection measures, especially the repair of roads, sewerage and water suppy pipelines, drainage, communication, electricity without unified plans that make roads always unsanitary. Many construction sites are not properly fenced in and the coverings are insufficient. As a result, dust is emitted to the ambient environment. Furthermore, many construction entities do not clean roads and trucks after transporting construction wastes, in this way causing dust pollution as well.
Thirdly, road transport is the most important source of air pollution in urban areas. The number of vehicles has increased rapidly, while the transport system is very outdated, the quality of road is poor. The traffic jam, congestion become daily phenomenon in big cities, vehicles under traffic jam emit emissions from 3 to 5 time higher compared to the normal conditions; in many cases vehicle emisssions do not meet standards.
Fourthly, industrial and handicraft production, especially coal, oil combustion activities without exhaust treatment devices will emit very high air pollution.
The fifth but not the last, the use of firewood, coal and oil for domestic activities (cooking in restaurants along the streets in particular) also contributes significantly to urban air pollution.
To minimize urban environmental pollution in Vietnam, it firstly should combine all measures (management, economic, scientific and technical measures) and focus on recovery and mitigation five main pollution sources above; the second is to educate and raise awareness of the community on environmental protection (the community refers to ordinary people, the owners of manufactures, the owners of vehicles, managers, the leaders of organizations, government agencies at all levels) to participate voluntarily in environmental protection and against the violations of Law on Environmental Protection; The third is the environmental protection agencies should strengthen inspection activities to enforce the Law on Environmental Protection. They also should tackle strictly, fairly, openly, transparently and impose a heavy fine to violators of Law on Environmental Protection; The fourth is Clean Air Act should be promulgated soon as many countries around the world have already had for many years
Moreover, the formulation and promulgation of legal documents on environmental protection have been appropriately paid attention in Vietnam, compared with other countries, but enforcement and compliance of regulations in our country is probably weaker than in many coutries. Perhaps, awareness of our community about environmental protection is still insufficient and inspection activities of environmental government agencies still need to be strenthened.