Air quality in Dębica

Is Debica currently a very polluted city?

Debica is a town in south eastern Poland and is the capital of Dębica County. According to a survey conducted in 2008, Dębica had an estimated population od approximately 50,000 people. Since the mid-1930s Dębica has been a large industrial hub.

During December 2021, Dębica was experiencing a period of “Moderate” air quality with a US AQI reading of 78. This United States Air Quality Index number is calculated using the levels of six of the most commonly occurring air pollutants, such as nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, ozone, carbon monoxide and both sizes of particulate matter, which are PM2.5 and PM10. It can then be used as the metric when comparing air quality in other cities around the world. If data is unavailable for all 6 pollutants, a figure can still be calculated by using what figures there are. There were just two pollutants measured in Debica which were PM2.5 - 25 µg/m³ and PM10 - 26 µg/m³.

This level of PM2.5 is two 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 quality is classed as “Moderate” the given advice would be to remain indoors as much as possible, closing all doors and windows to prevent the ingress of more polluted air. Those who are of a sensitive disposition should take extra care when venturing outside and take precautions such as wearing a good quality face mask to minimalize the chances of inhaling poor-quality air.

There is an app available from AirVisual.com for most operating systems that inform you of the air quality in real-time. This should help to decide whether it is safe to go outside, or not.

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

Air quality is very volatile as it is subject to many external influencing factors such as meteorological and atmospheric changes.

Looking back at the figures for 2020, published by IQAir.com, it can be seen that the best quality air was to be had during the month of July when the figure of 11.7 µg/m³ which is classified as being “Good”. January provided the worst air quality with a figure of 37.4 µg/m³, classified as being “Unhealthy for sensitive groups”. For the remaining ten months of the year the air quality was “Moderate” with readings between 12.1 and 35.4 µg/m³. The best month being June with a figure of 13.6 µg/m³, the worst was March with 34.3 µg/m³.

Historically, records regarding air quality were first kept in 2019 when a figure of 25.5 µg/m³ was noted, this decreased to 22.9 µg/m³ in 2020. However, this reading may have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic as many vehicles were no longer in daily use because the offices were closed, 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 it on a temporary basis.

What is the main source of polluted air in Debica?

More than 80% of Europeans living in urban areas breathe air that does not meet the standards set by the WHO. Unfortunately, when it comes to air pollution, Poland is one of the infamous leaders. It is estimated that each year in Poland about 45,000 people die as a result of air pollution.

The main source of air pollution in Debica comes from emissions from household stoves using very poor-quality fuel. According to data from the Central Statistical Office of Poland, in 2018 over 45 per cent of households in Poland were heated by burning solid fuels, mainly hard coal. Many farms bought the cheapest fuel of the lowest quality, which significantly exacerbated the problems with smog.

Can anything be done to improve air quality in Debica?

Programs allowing farms to obtain subsidies are to help in the replacement of ineffective heat sources. The aim is to reduce the emission of dust by replacing furnaces and solid fuel boilers with low-emission installations. As part of the project in Dębica, 117 solid fuel boilers will be replaced with gas boilers.

Industry, which was once the main culprit, is now contributing less to air pollution. This is mainly the result of a number of EU regulations that have forced changes in recent years.

As part of EU and national projects, Dębica purchased 10 modern low-emission buses, 263 photovoltaic sets, 250 solar sets and 40 pellet boilers were installed. A geothermal research borehole to a depth of approximately 3000 metres was built on the premises of MPEC in order to obtain thermal water for heating purposes.

For the air to be cleaner, it is necessary to implement a coherent transport policy focused on the development of public transport (more). In addition to the new rolling stock, punctuality and frequency of journeys, the possibility of transfers and a pricing policy that would encourage people to resign from traveling by car are also important. In order to speed up the journey by public transport, more and more cities decide to introduce the priority of traffic lights and to allocate bus lanes.

What are the health impacts of breathing dirty air in Debica?

Air pollutants such as dust, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and heavy metals have a negative impact on the quality of life, can cause respiratory, circulatory and nervous system diseases, including asthma in adults, with longer exposure increase the risk of developing neoplastic diseases.

Particulate matter is a particularly important substance in the air from the point of view of protecting our health and life. A dust whose particles have an aerodynamic diameter below 2.5 micrometres (microns) is termed PM2.5; we define PM10 dust similarly. PM is short for particulate matter.

How strongly dust pollution affects health depends not only on its concentration in the air and the time of exposure (i.e., the total amount of pollution that enters our body), but may also depend on the size, shape and chemical composition of dust particles. The chemical composition of dust, in turn, strongly depends on its origin. While there is strong evidence of adverse health effects from fossil fuel or biomass combustion dusts, the significance of exposure to mineral dust (dust from soil erosion or desert dust) is less certain. Dust from the combustion of coal, petroleum derivatives or biomass may contain various substances harmful to health, e.g., carcinogenic and mutagenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and their derivatives.