Africa is facing an increasingly urgent crisis in air quality, leading to devastating effects on the public health and the environment. Due to the continent’s rapid urbanization and industrialization, harmful pollutants are found in living areas like schools and work environments. This article will look at the key challenges and potential solutions for this severe issue.
What is causing air pollution in Africa?
Air pollution in Africa is an issue driven by various sources, including industrial emissions, urbanization, biomass burning, and dust storms. Key pollutants such as particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10), nitric oxides (NOx), sulphur dioxide (SO₂), and ozone (O3) are commonly found in African cities and industrial areas. For instance, South Africa is home to six out of ten world's largest nitrogen dioxide emission hotspots, due to their power plants. Similarly, cities like Cairo in Egypt or Yaoundé in Cameroon struggle with pollutants from vehicle exhaust and waste burning too.
One of the main challenges, which contribute to these numbers, is a lack of proper air quality monitoring technologies. In particular, industries are unable to track the pollution levels effectively and there is no reliable data to help them make important decisions. With inadequate regulatory enforcement in some of the countries as well as the high costs of traditional monitoring systems, solutions have been limited for years.
Environmental and health impact
Air pollution in Africa has profound consequences on both public health and the environment. Short-term exposure to this level of pollution can lead to such issues as eye irritation, headaches, and respiratory infections, while long-term, the affected people have an increased risk of lung diseases and cardiovascular conditions. Even worse, in many cases it leads to premature death. In fact, poor air quality contributed to 1.1 million deaths in Africa in 2019, becoming the second leading risk factor for death.
Not just that, the environment is suffering from air pollution too. The large levels of greenhouse gases and other chemicals released into the environment significantly contribute towards climate change. The continent is experiencing ever-changing weather patters, with a growing risk of extreme events like floods and droughts. This also affects the agricultural activities in the continent as well as the biodiversity of this beautiful part of the world.
How Kunak AIR is changing the game
The hope is not all lost, however, as innovative technologies like Kunak AIR are rapidly taking to the market. These station provide a cost-effective and highly accurate way to track air pollution in both urban and industrial areas. They utilize advanced sensors and smart technologies to make real-time data more accessible throughout the continent. Using Kunar AIR, African governments and industry leaders can develop informed strategies on how they will improve air quality management and reduce emissions.
So far, Kunak AIR have successfully deployed their solutions in many different regions, where traditional monitoring was limited, providing critical data and helping improve public health. A great example of this is the case study in Libya, at the LIFECO fertiliser plant. The organisation’s activities had potential impacts to the employees and the surrounding communities. Kunak AIR’s solutions allowed them to not only comply with regulatory requirements, but develop better pollution control strategies too.
Conclusion
Proper air quality monitoring solutions are the only way to combat the air quality crisis in Africa and protect public health and the environment. Cost-effective technologies like Kunak AIR make this fight possible.
