AIR
QUALITY
Air
quality is an important and vital resource to our lives, and how much better
and worse it can make our lives. If, our air quality is polluted, very highly
or low it still effects the way we breath and how well our body’s function. For
example, in the china video clip form class we watched a guy goa round china
and show how smoggy and foggy the air was due to all the pollution from
industrial places. He mentioned in the clip how breathing that air was
equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. But good air quality helps
better our lives by not destroying our bodies in that way and giving us clean
healthy unpolluted air.
Air quality has six various levels that associate with
our health, ranging from very clean to almost fatal. We need this index of the
different air quality levels to help us know our health risks in certain areas,
also, try to help those certain areas to decrease their bad air quality. The six
levels of air quality include, good, moderate, unhealthy for sensitive groups,
unhealthy, very unhealthy, and hazardous. To get a better picture of what each level
is, let’s break them down. Good air quality means very low risks towards air
pollution and little health risks associated. Moderate means the air quality is
still considered to be okay but to certain people they could be at risk because
of some pollutants in the air that could be harmful towards small numbers of
people. Unhealthy for sensitive groups, is saying that majority of the
community is going to not be affected in any way to the air quality but members
of certain health risk groups will be, such as asthma groups. Unhealthy level
of air quality now means majority of the community is going to be effected with
some kind or type of health risk that is accumulated through the air. Very unhealthy
air quality is simply saying that health risks are increased by a lot and majority
of population has a higher chance to be effected. Lastly, there is the
hazardous level and this is when that entire community/population is going to
have serious health effects from the air quality in this area.
Air Quality Index Forecast for the following cities:
Cincinnati- 43 = good
Cleveland/Akron- 57 = moderate
Columbus-44 = good
Dayton- 44 = good
Youngstown- 48
= good
These levels show what level each city is going to be
having, which it seems most cities in Ohio have good air quality, which is nice
to know that we do not have to worry too much about the air we breathe here.
A state implementation plan is among the federal level
and is an enforced plan for each state. This plan needs to follow the
guidelines among the national ambient air quality standards. Each state must
maintain these and attain these plans to keep each state with clean air.
The environmental protection agency has certain
requirements for the NAAQS. Among these requirements, there is a certain six
principal pollutants that need to be revised periodically. These six pollutants
are also known as “criteria” air pollutants, which include, Carbon dioxide,
lead, Nitrogen dioxide, ozone and particle pollution.
Current standards for NAAQS:
Ozone- .070 ppm
PM 2.5- 12.0 ug/m^3
Sulfur Dioxide- N/A
Nitrogen dioxide-N/A
Lead- N/A
