Air quality in Valencia

What is the air quality index of Valencia?

Valencia or València as it would be written by a Spanish person is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-largest city in Spain after Madrid and Barcelona. The population is difficult to define as it depends on what is classed as part of the metropolitan region, and what is not. It is said to range from between 1.7 to 2.5 million people.

It is a seaport on the Mediterranean Sea and is the 5^th busiest container port in Europe.

At the beginning of 2021, Valencia was experiencing a period of “Moderate” quality air with a US AQI reading of 70. This falls in with the guidelines by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The levels of the pollutants were as follows: PM2.5 - 21 µg/m³, PM10 - 21.5 µg/m³, ozone (O₃) - 9 µg/m³, nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) - 25.5 µg/m³, sulphur dioxide (SO₂) - 3.5 µg/m³ and carbon monoxide (CO) - 0.1 µg/m³. With pollution at this level, the advice is to close doors and windows to prevent the ingress of dirty air and those of a sensitive disposition should avoid outdoor activities until the air quality improves. If venturing outside is unavoidable then a good quality face-mask should be worn at all times.

What is the main source of air pollution in Valencia?

The atmospheric pollutants that can be found in Valencia are those of an urban environment with a predominance of road traffic, that is, oxides of sulphur, carbon and nitrogen, aromatic hydrocarbons, particles in suspension of different sizes PM2.5 and PM10, ozone generated by ultraviolet radiation and noise as a pollutant of a physical nature.

The city of Valencia is a Mediterranean city, with a very gentle climate, an average annual temperature of around 18 ºC, low and irregular rainfall, a high degree of solar radiation and subject to a regime of low-speed winds. It has a large number of registered vehicles, which makes road traffic the main pollutant source, constituting approximately 90 per cent of the emissions of atmospheric pollutants. There are other sources such as emissions from industry and power production.

How is the pollution level measured in Valencia?

The control and surveillance of air pollution are through an Automatic Air Pollution Control Network which measures air pollutants and meteorological parameters.

The fundamental objective of this Network is to monitor the quality of the air in the city to protect people's health and to comply with the legislative rule of surveillance of the sanitary quality of the air.

The levels of the main pollutants that are released into the atmosphere negatively affect people, property and the environment are monitored continuously.

The different stations that make up the Network are distributed throughout the city and provide data that allows analysis and detects possible occurrences of atmospheric pollution, allowing citizens to be informed of the quality of the ambient air in real-time.

The data is processed and validated by the Centre for Environmental Studies of the Mediterranean (CEAM) on behalf of the Ministry of the Environment. Once validated, this data is received simultaneously by the Department of the Environment and by the Valencia City Council.

What can be done to improve the air quality in Valencia?

Barcelona, Valencia and Seville are the cities with the most polluted air in Spain by exceeding the limit established by the World Health Organisation (WHO) of 10 µg/m³ of annual concentration for airborne particles (PM), according to the analysis carried out by Fundación Aquae.

This data was extracted from an international research paper published in August 2019 and instigated by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Fudan University (China), based on the analysis of 652 cities in 24 countries, including 45 Spanish cities.

What are the effects of breathing Valencia’s poor quality air?

The health effects of particles in suspension depend on their concentration in the atmosphere, their composition and the time of exposure. Said effects also vary depending on the size of the particles, the smaller ones being more damaging due to their greater ability to penetrate inside the body through the respiratory tract. Among the main sources of particulate matter emissions are transportation, industrial activities, uncontrolled burning of waste and construction activities.

How can people protect themselves from the dirty air in Valencia?

As highlighted by the environmental entity, for yet another year, ozone continues to stand out as the "most widespread pollutant and with stationary or rising levels." The report concludes that the entire population and the Valencian territory were exposed to levels of contamination that exceed the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO). The entity urges that air pollution be addressed as "a problem of the first order" since annually up to 30,000 premature deaths in Spain as a result of this situation.

In 2018, there was a general reduction in the levels of pollution of particulate matter PM10 and PM2.5, nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and sulphur dioxide (SO₂), which "apparently" recovered the decreasing trend of these pollutants that had begun in 2008 with the economic crisis. However, it points out that the pollution generated from the metropolitan areas of València, "spread throughout the territory affecting rural areas in the form of tropospheric ozone ", which is the pollutant that presents a greater extension and affects the population, with levels that remain" stationary "or even" rising ".

High rainfall and atmospheric instability have reduced pollution episodes and contributed "significantly" to improving overall air quality. Winter and autumn have been humid, which has favoured the dispersion and deposition of the typical winter pollutants (NO₂ and particles). By contrast, despite heavy spring rains, the prolonged summer heat has kept ozone levels high.

According to ecologists, the Air Quality Improvement Plans to reduce pollution are mandatory according to current legislation but criticise that, in the case of ozone, "the Generalitat Valenciana has been omitting the development and application" of these initiatives for years. "This is negligence that is endangering the health of 2.1 million Valencians and most of the crops and forests in the territory," stressed the organisation, which calls for promoting public transport, cycle tracks and pedestrian traffic.

It also proposes to adopt the best available industrial techniques, promote energy savings, close coal-fired power plants, penalize diesel vehicles and declare an area of control of maritime transport emissions in the Mediterranean, such as those of the Baltic Sea and the North Sea.