The southern provinces, such as Phuket, Songkhla, and Trang, enjoy good air quality all year round. This with the hope that it would cause rain and, as a result, reduce the fine dust particles in the air. Is the air pollution better during the holiday when everyone is away? The liquid, which soon flooded one of Bangkok’s busiest intersections, came from water cannons aimed at alleviating the smog that has shrouded Bangkok for weeks. The government proposed some short term measures to address the issue.
I used to joke that we left Beijing in 2014 as pollution refugees. On average tourists should avoid Bangkok between late October and early April.
To answer these questions, I plotted the daily average for different months using data from 2017 and 2018. A view of central Bangkok on a polluted day last week. The World Health Organization says outdoor air pollution caused 4.2 million premature deaths in 2016, claiming far more lives annually than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. So why did I get soaked last week, as I walked along a major avenue in the Thai capital? What are Typical Opening Hours in Thailand? Or perhaps the high AQI is due to other factors. Commuters in central Bangkok last week. Scientists agree that spraying jets of water, especially from polluting trucks, will do little to disperse Bangkok’s smog. A layer of smog blankets the Thai capital Bangkok on January 14, 2019. We again see the seasonal trend of the PM2.5 pollution. The current junta has repeatedly postponed national elections — the latest date is set for March 24 — yet there has been little mass outrage expressed about the slow return to a nominal democracy. I had tired of strapping little face masks on our boys just so they could commute to school. If you have any suggestions, please leave your comment below. Water Cannons. Thank you for reading, and stay tuned for Part II! Object-oriented programming is dead. A decade ago, air in the Thai capital had gotten cleaner largely because of a ban on the most polluting vehicles.
Greeting a monk after offering alms. But the spike in air pollution has been front-page fare here — eclipsing the news trickling out earlier this month about the bodies of two exiled Thai dissidents found by the Mekong River, their abdomens stuffed with concrete blocks. In Part II of this blog post, I will try to use machine learning to identify the source of the air pollution in Bangkok.
Air pollution indices are normal for most locations except for high levels of PM2.5 in the northern provinces, shown in red. When the reality finally hit, the government considered some outlandish ideas, like using giant fans to blow the pollution out of town. A rat scurried, then swam. In Part II of this blog post, I will model the air pollution data. Pedestrians squealed as the plumes of water shot into the air. Tangles of power lines dangle dangerously. Note that I plotted normalized data for better comparison.
Many Chinese began a national rethink. You can keep track of current Bangkok air pollution on the Air Quality Index Widget’s website, along with information about the city you may live in as a comparison. The south of Thailand has low AQI all year long, as you can see in the map below. As I was flying back to Bangkok this month, my heart sank as the plane descended into an ocher haze. Of course, Bangkok air pollution has been extremely bad for many years, with little being done by subsequent governments to change that fact. I took the average of each year end (September — May) and counted the number of day with high PM 2.5 AQI: The yearly average for PM2.5 AQI seems to slightly increase in winter 2018–2019, while pollution in the previous years are comparable. The Response? You may be thinking, “But that’s when I have my holiday! The pollution starts around late October and lasts until early April for both 2017 and 2018. The burning of fallow fields and a dry season with little wind exacerbate the crisis.
A couple of years ago, I didn’t realize that our dishwasher had caught fire and was sending smoke throughout the house because everything was already so murky from the pollution. In fact, the Bangkok region is not the only place that suffers from particle air pollution. Is the air quality better in the morning or during the weekend? It will be very hard to get people to give up their cars.”. The air quality in Bangkok is actually still better than many Asian countries. There are too many cars for too few roads, and too little interest in public transportation. Instead, editorials demanded answers from the junta about the unhealthy air. Environmental agencies report air pollution measurements using the air quality index (AQI). How much is a house or apartment for a retired couple in Chiang Mai, Thailand? Make learning your daily ritual. SUBSCRIBE for daily travel videos: http://bit.ly/2hyQnZ1 INSTAGRAM?
Active children and adults, and people with respiratory disease, such as asthma, should limit prolonged outdoor exertion. In the taxi home, my driver was wearing a mask. City buses belch murky smoke. Air pollution is reported through the air quality index (AQI), with higher values indicating worse air pollution. Like many Asian megalopolises, which crowd the catalog of the world’s most polluted cities, Bangkok suffers from a toxic amalgam: unchecked industrialization and urbanization, a car-crazy populace and lax regulation. For years, Beijing residents spoke of fog rather than smog. Wait, really? Today’s levels — PM2.5 – airborne dust particles 2.5 microns in diameter or less – exceeded the standard level of 50 micrograms per cubic metre of air in almost 20 places around Bangkok. The spike in Bangkok’s air pollution has been front-page news. The northern provinces, such as Lampang, Chiang Mai, and Chiang Rai, suffer from worse air pollution than Bangkok, but receive much less media attention. Best Drug Store in Bangkok – Boots or Watsons?
In Part I of this blog post, I will answer these questions through visualizing the publicly available air pollution data. Smoke spewed from the trucks’ exhaust pipes. Even in the ugliest agglomeration of concrete, a spray of bougainvillea pushes its way through the cracks. Getting A Data Science Job is Harder Than Ever, Business Intelligence Visualizations with Python, 7 Free eBooks every Data Scientist should read in 2020. Parts of Asia are chocking under a thick layer of smog, leading at least one country to experiment in extreme forms of weather modification in an attempt to clear the toxic brown skies.
We do not go outside very much, wear a mask when we do and run our air purifiers 24/7. Then we moved to Bangkok. First, let’s look closely at how air pollution is related to traffic. Death knell for the Thai tourist industry, Thailand’s GDP to shrink 8.3% in 2020 says World Bank — more than that is likely we predict, AirAsia flying from Suvarnabhumi to Chiang Mai, Phuket, Krabi and Surat Thani from September, 2020, Foreigners with 30-day visa extension in Thailand can stay until November 30th, others until October 31st. We moved from Beijing to Shanghai just as the air there got worse. Thailand's Ministry of Education has ordered all schools in Bangkok and some surrounding provinces to close for the remainder of the week amid concerns over dangerous levels of air pollution. Bangkok air pollution is caused by too many vehicles, the lack of enforcement of emissions standards, too few green spaces and poor urban planning. What about provinces outside Bangkok? It was the same feeling of dread I had when returning to China. Is there a time of day or day of week dependence?
Let us start by looking for general trends. If you’re concerned about air quality, as a tourist visiting Bangkok, which months should you avoid? Air pollution in Thailand, is a really serious problem and it seems as if nothing is being done to fix it. Air pollution is a serious environmental threat in many Asian countries. While the air pollution in Bangkok peaked in January, the pollution moved to the northern provinces. A vendor of coconut ice cream failed to stop his pushcart from careening into a sewer. Almost immediately, we got stuck in traffic. Being informed about the current outdoor air quality can help you to protect yourself. Check out my earlier blog post detailing how to scrap air pollution data from the government website. I was home. As recently as February last year, Greenpeace Thailand asked Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha to deal with the air pollution as particles were at dangerous levels again. From 2014 to … Even as pollution control monitors say they are eliminating the dirtiest diesel engines, a walk on a Bangkok road can be a choking experience. Nor will other unorthodox methods — like water-spraying drones that have been deployed in recent days in Bangkok — fix the chronic air problem. For all that lures tourists to Bangkok — orchids, cheap massages, mango and sticky rice — this is not a city that pampers its residents. Dusty ficus trees are wrapped with ribbons, as if their ability to flourish in such a dense urban setting is a gift to the 10 million people who call the metropolitan area home. On many days they couldn’t play outside at all.
In general, the environmental agencies need to monitor four pollutant sources: ground level ozone(O₃), particle pollution (PM2.5 and PM10), and toxic gases (NO₂, CO, SO₂).
A decade ago, the Thai capital was a rarity in Asia, a place where the air had gotten cleaner largely because of a ban on the most polluting vehicles. Where else I can go?” May I suggest Phuket or Samui Island?
Proper pavements are a rarity. In the US, a PM2.5 concentration higher than 35.4 µg/m³ corresponds to an AQI of 100, and is considered moderate for the general population and unhealthy for sensitive individuals (children, pregnant women, and elderly). The air pollution is not better during the weekend. The air pollution in Bangkok seems to be seasonal, with surges in the winter. A profusion of plastic bags chokes canals and ever-expanding trash heaps. He shook his head at the bad air. For the numbers of days plot, I used the number of days at the same time in the previous years to estimate the missing data. Air pollution is a serious environmental threat in many Asian countries. In terms of the number of bad air days, winter 2017-2018 had 70 days with very high AQI, 10 days more than the previous year. This could be due to the smaller number of measurements, since the data for the rest of winter 2018-2019 is yet to be measured. NaRaYa: Bangkok, Thailand’s Fabulous Bag, Gift and Fabric Products Store — the perfect souvenir shop, Centra by Centara Hotel Bangkok Phra Nakhon Management Agreement signed — hotel to open in 2022.
Inspiration for this work came from a Facebook post by Data-addict. As Tasty Thailand reported a couple of weeks ago, Bangkok, Thailand has been struggling with air pollution at record levels for the last few weeks. This data is from the Berkeley Earth database. Tourists and locals probably have questions like: Is air pollution getting worse? “There are some government agencies that want to help decrease the pollution, but maybe this is not the best thing,” said Pralong Dumrongthai, the director general of the Pollution Control Department of Thailand, in a delicate assessment of the water cannon treatment.
PM2.5 above 55.4 µg/m³ corresponds to an AQI of 150, and is considered unhealthy.
Is air pollution getting worse? Does the pollution spike during rush hour? Hands-on real-world examples, research, tutorials, and cutting-edge techniques delivered Monday to Thursday. Thai Officials Close Schools As Toxic Air Pollution Chokes Bangkok Fine particulate matter floating through the murky haze that hangs over the city has reached harmful levels, ... 2019 … But, like many drivers in Bangkok, he had hung a garland of jasmine on the rearview mirror. Details on how to convert these measurements to numbers depend on the local laws. To answer these questions, let’s look at the hourly average during the winter. Outline Introduction Status of Air Pollution Determinants of Air Pollution Economic Effects Spirit houses adorned with offerings of red Fanta soda nourish the city’s soul.
This week, Bangkok is back to having potentially dangerous air pollution, with airborne dust particles having currently risen back up to levels seen just over a week ago.