Air quality of Zhuhai almost up there with Lhasa's

Zhuhai ranked 3rd among 74 Chinese cities monitored for air quality in the year's first seven months, the Ministry of Environmental Protection reported on Aug 16.

Only Haikou on Hainan Island and Lhasa in Tibet had better results. Following Zhuhai were Huizhou, Zhoushan, Shenzhen, Lishui, Xiamen, Fuzhou, and Guiyang.

At the bottom of the list are Handan, Shijiazhuang, Xingtai, Baoding, Tangshan, Taiyuan, Zhengzhou, Hengshui, Xi'an, and Jinan.

The report states that nine cities in the Pearl River Delta region saw fine air quality on 87.4 percent of July's 31 days, an increase of 2.5 percent over last year. This was despite a national year-on-year decrease of 6.3 percent to 82.5 percent among 338 cities at prefecture level and above.

Zhuhai boasts fine air quality [Photo courtesy Zhujiang Evening Post]

From January to July, the region consistently met national Grade-II Level annual averages in terms of PM 2.5 and PM 10 concentration, according to Liu Quanzhi, head of the Department of Environmental Monitoring of the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

Nonetheless, 76.6 percent of the period met the target average Grade-I and II levels in 338 cities nationwide, dropping by 3.2 percent year-on-year. PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations in the regions are generally flat.