Pakistan ranked second most polluted country in the world after Bangladesh. IQAir announced this on Wednesday, a Swiss group that measures air quality based on the concentration of lung-harmful particles in the air, also known as PM2.5.
South Asia is the most polluted region in the world. Bangladesh, India and Pakistan share 42 of the world's 50 most polluted cities, IQAir said in its 2020 air quality report, which includes data from 106 countries.
“In the most polluted countries in the region, there are several cities where US AQI levels are on average 'unhealthy' (> 55.5 μg / m3) or worse,” the report said. Bangladesh: 80% of the cities Pakistan 67% of the cities; India 32% of the cities.
According to the report, urbanization, rapid economic development and industrialization were the main causes of air pollution in Pakistan.
"The main sources of air pollution in Pakistan include emissions from road traffic (both exhaust and road dust), combustion of domestic biomass and industrial activities," said IQAir.
"Pakistan also suffers from agricultural air pollution and shares the transboundary pollution from this activity with India." Worryingly, the report found that more than 20% of deaths in Pakistan are "due to the negative health effects of air pollution."
IQAir ranked Lahore the 18th most polluted city in the world in 2020 and the second most polluted megacity after New Delhi, exposing its 11 million residents to dangerous levels of PM2.5.
"There is no public access to government network data, but Pakistan's Environmental Protection Agency has taken a number of measures to reduce industrial emissions and plans to implement a monitoring network," said IQAir.
"It is not yet clear whether the data from the monitoring network will be published in real time."
The main factor of air pollution in Pakistan is from the neighbour country India , they burn the residuals of the crops and the unburnt smoke causes the smog in the bordering cities.
