On July 16, The Ministry of Ecology and Environment released a notificationonthe quality of surface water and ambient airof Chinain the first half of the year, accordingto whichYichang ranksfirst in terms of theyear-on-yearimprovement of its air quality.
The notification shows that from January to June, Yichang has improved the most among the 168 key cities across the country, in terms of composite index of ambient air quality. According to the statistics, PM2.5, PM10, and NO2are the indicators that show the main changes of the city’s air quality in the first half of the year, with anaverage concentration decrease by 33.8%, 31.3%, and 32.3%for each; and itsratio of daysof good air quality has increasedby 19.5 %.
Since the beginning of this year, the city has been focusing on the improvementof itsair quality bydealing with heavy air pollution to drastically reduce the concentration of PM2.5, andhas madea good start inthe war against thepollution. In the next phase, to containthe ozone pollution, Yichang will concentrate on removing its industrial and mobile sources in the spirit ofsimultaneously promotingthetreatment of both the symptoms and their root causes, so as to ensurea steady increase of finedays. (Reporter: Yang Jing; correspondent: Wang Jingjing)