The Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA), in collaboration with the South African Weather Service (SAWS), on Tuesday launched the first phase of the South African Air Quality Information System (Saaqis), which it expected would assist in policymaking, as well as in the eventual enforcement of air quality legislation.

Saaqis is a web-based interactive air quality information system, which draws information from a number of air quality monitoring stations across the country, and which is accessible by the public.

DEA national air quality officer Peter Lukey noted at the launch that the country needed to gather information to ensure that it could improve air quality management.

Policy making in terms of South Africa's air quality was in the past done largely on ad-hoc air quality information with no historical data to understand air quality trends and impacts.

However, with Saaqis, policymaking would now be driven by air quality information, where air pollution trends are available for each area being monitored.

This would allow South Africa to assess whether its air quality was improving and also to identify where potential air pollution problems exist.

The system had been under development for the past three years.

Information from ambient air quality monitoring stations, emissions monitoring data and other relevant documentation were continuously sent to the central Saaqis server, based at the SAWS office, in Pretoria.

The public could then use the system to access information on air quality in their area, generate graphs, access legislation and other relevant documentation and report air quality incidents.

About 56 out of the 95 government-owned air quality monitoring stations had already agreed to share its information with the system, while more were being signed on.

Lukey noted that more stations were continuing to sign up to the system, as they could see the value of the project.

The DEA was also hoping to establish three air quality monitoring stations in the Waterberg region, as this was a region in South Africa where the air quality was under threat as a result of new coal mines and coal-to-liquids plants, as well as power plants, that were being built in the area.

This could be a new potential air quality hot spot, said Lukey.

There were also other areas in South Africa, such as the Northern Cape, where few air quality monitoring systems were in existence, as they had previously not been required in these areas.

However, the DEA has done an initial assessment to determine where the country could benefit from the roll out of new monitoring stations and would now work on setting up a roll-out plan.

Further, Lukey said that it was also aiming to include information from air quality monitoring systems owned by industrial organisations, like Eskom, the Airports Company South Africa, Sasol and Anglo American, to the system.

This could fill some of the gaps where no government-owned monitoring stations existed.

Meanwhile, Lukey noted that about R5-million had been spent on the development of Saaqis, but highlighted that much of this was funded through donor funding from the Danish and Norwegian governments, with South Africa's own government having contributed about R2-million.

Donor funds have also contributed to the establishment of monitoring stations, which cost about R1-million each.

The DEA was hoping to attract more donor funding for the establishment of future monitoring stations, said Lukey.

FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

Meanwhile, Lukey noted that Saaqis would continue to be improved and expanded in the coming ten years.

Phase two of the system would be initiated in April and would focus on emissions inventories from sources such as industries, vehicles, residential dwellings, and other energy sources.

Between 2012 and 2020, the system would be evolved to allow for air pollution forecasting, access to air quality modelling tools, access to air-quality related research and automated ‘State of the Air' reports.