The HCMC Department of Natural Resources and Environment will start late this month broadcasting eight indicators on air and water quality.

Traffic grinds to a halt in HCMC. The HCMC Department of Natural Resources and Environment will start late this month broadcasting eight indicators on air and water quality

At a conference last week, Nguyen Toan Thang, director of the department, said the city's key environmental indicators will be posted on the website of the department at www.donre.hochiminhcity.gov.vn and broadcast on 48 electronic boards which are currently used to display traffic information.

The quality indicators are NO2, CO2, dust and noise while pH, BOD5, COD and DO are the water quality indicators. “These environmental indicators will show the causes of environmental problems, thus making it possible to take appropriate coping solutions,” Thang noted.

Environment experts said the city lacked a system that could issue timely warnings of environmental issues and that just observations did not help, so environmental data needed to be analyzed to make forecasts and issue warnings, if any.

The environment monitoring system in the city has been haphazard for years, so it has been hard to collect sufficient data and make proper environmental assessments.

The department has asked the city government for approval to build 27 automated and 227 semi-automated stations to monitor surface water, ground water and air pollution. This project is projected to cost about VND495 billion and be up and running in 2020.

The city now has about 50 huge sources of wastewater with a daily discharge of more than 1,000 cubic meters each. 

Beside 16 existing automated monitoring stations at industrial parks and export processing zones, the environment agency will install semi-automated monitoring stations in other parts of the city and four out-of-order stations will soon be equipped with automated systems.

In a related development, the city will use modern technology for waste treatment.

The city has 7,000-8,000 tons of waste discharged a day. 

Most solid waste is treated by the Da Phuoc facility in Binh Chanh District with a daily intake of 4,000 tons and the remainder at another waste treatment facility in Cu Chi District, said Tran Kim Phat, head of the HCMC waste treatment facility management board.

SGT