Under the implementation roadmap of the ‘Building Da Nang into an Environmentally-friendly city’ project for the 2021 - 2030 period, heed given to increasing the number of environmental monitoring stations and the frequency of sampling and monitoring is of great significance in helping the city monitor the status quo, control the environment, and promptly respond to any unexpected pollution incidents of deep concern.

Relevant forces collected samples of water in Phu Loc River, which flows through Thanh Khe District for the monitoring of water quality. Photo: HOANG HIEP

According to the Da Nang Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, over the past time, the air quality monitoring, with the measurement of particulate matter (dust PM10, NO2, SO2...), at all locations, has been ensured according to the national regulations.

The monitoring of water quality in Cu De River has also met the national standards. Basic parameters such as DO, BOD5 and COD at monitoring locations in the iconic Han River in Da Nang belonging to Vu Gia - Thu Bon river basin are within the allowable limits of the national regulations.

However,  Deputy Director of the Da Nang Department of Natural Resources and the Environment Vo Nguyen Chuong pointed out to the risk of increasing emissions from socio-economic development, urbanisation and industrialisation activities, and the negative impacts on the quality of air, water and soil has tend to be on upward trend.

That highly concerning fact is prompting the city to develop monitoring and early warning systems on the status and the pollution levels so as to promptly provide environmental data to management agencies as a basis for the handling and resolution in a timely manner.

Recently, the municipal Department of Natural Resources and the Environment has proposed the municipal People's Committee to launch a programme of environmental quality monitoring citywide for the 2021- 2025 period at a total cost of VND31.7 billion, in order to strengthen the monitoring of air and water quality, in tandem with adding two new monitoring systems for the soil and sedimentary environment.

For the time being, there are 58 air environment monitoring positions across the city, 64 water environment monitoring positions in rivers, streams, lakes and coastal seas, and six soil and five sediment monitoring locations.

Notably, in addition to the existing three automatic and continuous monitoring stations for the air environment, the city has invested in six additional similar ones at locations in all local districts to measure temperature, humidity, air traffic, wind speed, dust and the concentration of CO, SO2 and NO2 with the measurement frequency of every five minutes.

In addition, there are many points to collect dust samples with a frequency of 10 days/sample and the samples of NO2 and SO2 a with a frequency of 20 days/sample to monitor air quality at locations such as the Hai Van Cement Company, the Da Nang Steel Company, the Non Nuoc stone carving village, Tho Quang Seafood Service Industry Park (IP), the Hoa Cam IP, the Thanh Vinh industrial cluster, and the Cosevco 19 Cement Company.

To ensure the quality of domestic water supplied to the people, the city has kept the operation of the automatic and continuous water environment station at the Cau Do water plant area and added five more automatic monitoring stations for continuously measuring the pH. , DO, salinity, turbidity and mercury in rivers such as Han, Cu De, Phu Loc, Vu Gia, Vinh Dien and Tuy Loan with a frequency of 5 minutes/turn.

Along with the modern environmental monitoring systems funded by the municipal budget, businesses have owned similar ones for waste water quality and emissions in accordance with the law.

“The collection of sufficient environmental data is of great significance for the local authorities to release warns about environmental quality and provide adequate information on environmental quality to the community”, emphasised Mr. Vo Nguyen Chuong.

Under the ‘Building Da Nang into an Environmentally-friendly city’ project, the city aims to have more than 95% of the total emission sources (emissions, wastewater and solid waste) solid) controlled automatically whilst the air quality index is lower than 100 AQI and water quality index is higher than 90 WQI. Also environmental pollution hotspots will be resolved.

The project also sets out the task of building technical infrastructure, an environmental monitoring network with modern monitoring technology.

Reporting by HOANG HIEP – Translating by A. THU