Air quality in Guadalajara

What is the current level of air pollution in Guadalajara?

Guadalajara is a metropolis in western Mexico and the capital of the state of Jalisco. Guadalajara is an international centre of business, finance, arts, and culture, as well as the economic centre of the Bajío region, one of the most productive and developed regions in Latin America.

According to a census conducted in 2015, Guadalajara had an estimated population of approximately 1,500,0000. Add to this figure the metro area too, then the total rises to over 5 million.

At the beginning of 2022, Guadalajara was going through a period of “Moderate” quality air with a US AQI reading of 68 This United States Air Quality Index number is an internationally used set of metrics supported by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and is used to compare the air quality in different cities throughout the world using comparable standards. It is calculated by using the levels of the six most commonly found pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, ozone, carbon monoxide and both sizes of particulate matter, which are PM2.5 and PM10. If all six figures are not always available in which case, a level is calculated by using what data there is. In Guadalajara there were five of the major pollutants recorded which were; PM2.5 - 16.7 µg/m³, PM10 - 88.8 µg/m³, ozone (O₃) - 5 µg/m³, sulphur dioxide (SO₂) - 7.5 µg/m³ and carbon monoxide (CO) - 0 µg/m³.

This level of PM2.5 is just over one and a half times above the recommended safe level of 10 µg/m³ as suggested by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as being an acceptable level. Although no amount of air pollution is considered to be safe.

When air pollution is from this “Moderate” bracket the given advice would be to remain indoors as much as possible, closing doors and windows to prevent the ingress of more polluted air. Those who are more sensitive to poor quality air should avoid venturing outside until it improves. If this is unavoidable, then a good quality face mask should be worn at all times. All types of outdoor exercise should be avoided until the air quality improves. There is a downloadable app from AirVisual.com which is suitable for all operating systems and gives the latest information regarding air quality in real-time.

Does the level of air pollution remain the same throughout the year in Guadalajara?

Air quality can be very volatile as it can easily be affected by many things. Looking back at the figures published by IQAir.com for 2020, it can be seen that the month of November returned the dirtiest air with a figure from the “Unhealthy for sensitive groups” classification. The recorded figure was 41 µg/m³. The remaining eleven months saw air quality from the “Moderate” bracket with figures between 12.1 and 35.4 µg/m³. The dirtiest of these months was December with a figure of 31.3 µg/m³.

Records for air pollution were first kept in 2019 when an 18.9 µg/m³ figure was recorded. This deteriorated to a 24.5 µg/m³ in 2020. This figure was unexpected because it may have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic as many vehicles were no longer in daily use because the offices were closed and the staff encouraged to work from home, in an attempt to halt the spread of the virus. Many factories and non-essential production units were also required to close which removed their emissions from the atmosphere, albeit on a temporary basis. Worldwide, cities reported a much better quality of air due to the general lack of traffic pollution in city centres due to the pandemic.

Is there a main source of air pollution in Guadalajara?

One of the classic and basic pollutants in monitoring stations is material in the form of suspended particles that can be inhaled and passed into the lungs, known as "particles smaller than 10 micrometres" or PM10, which can originate from wind erosion of the clays of the soil, as waste in the grinding processes, in the combustion or even the condensation of gases by photochemical reactions in the atmosphere. Its dangerousness depends on its origin and composition: those caused by natural phenomena are regularly less dangerous than those derived from human activities.

The rest of the sources of pollutants, which are the ones that year after year contribute particles to the atmosphere of Guadalajara. The main ones are the burning of tyres in more than 50 brickyards or in open-air dumps and the emissions of 1,016,508 automotive units that make up the vehicle fleet in the metropolitan area of Guadalajara, and more than 200,000 units that make up the floating fleet. In addition, important sources are emissions from industry (cement plants, smelters, etc.) and the burning of agricultural land around the city that uses fire as part of a technology for cleaning prior to preparing land for cultivation or for harvesting sugar cane.

Can anything be done to improve air quality in Guadalajara?

The ProAire respond to the need of the states to have a preventive and/or corrective instrument in terms of air quality and health protection, as well as to comply with the applicable legal framework in this matter. Through these programs, aspects such as the following are achieved:

• Promote the participation of the three levels of government (federal, state and municipal), as well as industry, academia and organized civil society, in dealing with the problem of air pollution.
• Generate a diagnosis of the causes that influence air quality in the study area.
• Identify the main sources of emission of air pollutants.
• Define measures and actions focused on emission reduction, institutional strengthening, health protection, communication strategies and environmental education.

What are the detrimental effects of breathing in polluted air?

Increasing global attention to air pollution is focused on the impacts that ozone, particulate matter, and other pollutants have on human health. It is natural, the numbers that the headlines of the newspapers show us are alarming. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that air pollution inside and outside the home is the cause of approximately 7 million premature deaths worldwide. Most of these deaths, 4.2 million, are associated with outdoor pollution, a major environmental risk factor affecting urban and rural populations around the world.