The latest Air Quality Plan refers to the period from 2021 to 2031 and includes 80 measures for the reduction and prevention of air pollution in Belgrade, one of them being the increase in the number of monitoring devices and measuring points for air control.

By doing this, as stated in the Plan, the quality of the information provided to citizens is improved, to preserve public health, but the mentioned provision in no way contributes to the reduction of pollution, which has been on the rise in the past years.

Currently, there is no precise information on the number of operative monitoring stations in Belgrade — according to the City Institute for Public Health’s data, there are 23 Air Quality Monitoring Stations (AQMS), while the Agency for Environmental Protection’s website counts 27 stations within the capital. The total number of monitoring stations across the entirety of Serbia’s territory, according to SEPE data, is 68, which is, to a significant extent, a smaller number of distributed working stations relative to the capital.

Given that almost half of the AQMS is located on the territory of Belgrade alone, it is questionable why the Air Quality Plan (in the agglomeration of Belgrade) states as one of the measures the urgency to allocate certain funds from the budget for new stations. 

Milenko Jovanović and Dejan Lekić from the National Ecological Association, emphasize that additional installations of such stations are entirely unnecessary because the success of quality management of air is not evaluated by the number of newly acquired superfluous analyzers and stations, but by the level of emission reduction which causes excessively polluted air.

Ognjan Pantić from the Belgrade Open School also states that there are no such funds set aside for the implementation of the Plan, nor any visible coordination on carrying out and reporting of the Plan to the City Administration, and points out that this is what the focus should be on.

Additionally, there is no information about the exact locations at which AQMS would be placed.

„Even a 1,000 stations will not improve air quality, nor change the existing multi-year diagnosis that the air is excessively polluted,” state Milenko and Dejan from the National Ecological Association.

Ognjan Pantić, on the other hand, describes cooperation between agencies and citizens as one positive example, similar to the American model, where citizens receive instructions on where to get sensors and how to use them, further characterizing citizen involvement in installing AQMS themselves as good.

Apart from the pressure and proving that the Air Quality Improvement Plan was made to not fulfill the essential goals, which is, according to Milenko and Dejan from the National Ecological Association, the adoption and implementation of adequate measures to improve quality, citizens are powerless because institutions do not carry out this job.

All of the above leads us to the conclusion that the money should be diverted to concrete measures that would lead to the reduction of air pollution where measurements already exist and indicate that the air is excessively polluted or introduce monitoring stations in cities where there are no such stations. Therefore, in addition to confirming that the air is of excessively poor quality, institutions should work to reduce that pollution.

Članak Is Belgrade in need of more monitoring stations for assessing air quality? se pojavljuje prvo na Oblakoder.

Air Quality Plan for Belgrade during the period from 2021 to 2031 recognizes traffic as one of the contributing factors to air pollution. However, the question arises whether the solutions offered in this plan are adequate and competent to improve air quality in Belgrade.

We cannot talk about the Air Quality Plan without mentioning the General Urban Plan (GUP) because the Air Quality Plan itself, among other things, relies on this document.

The current GUP of Belgrade was adopted in 2016 with a time horizon stretching up to the year 2021, and it does not mean that this document has expired, but that the scope of development that it directs is limited to that year.

„Unfortunately, the negative planning practice of subordinating the development of the city has been present for a long time due to predominantly economic interest. Therefore, when we observe the continuity of planning, we will identify the constant expansion of construction land for the needs of building new corporate, commercial, residential, catering, and tourist facilities and complexes, most often on the account of green areas and public spaces. Due to the absence of quality social dialogue, almost as a rule, political influences and economic interests prevail over the public good. The consequences of this approach are most acutely observed in the domain of environmental protection, which suffers the greatest pressure from intensive urbanization”, believes Dragomir Ristanović, an urban planner from the RERI organization.

All this directly affects the air quality in Belgrade, which has been very polluted lately. In the Air Quality Plan of Belgrade, it is stated that the share of air pollution from traffic ranges from 13% in Zemun to 40% in the area around the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. The same Plan lists bicycle traffic as one of the provisions for improving the quality of air.

Paradoxically, the City of Belgrade has forecasted zero dinars to be allocated from the 2023 budget for the development of cycling infrastructure.

„First of all, Belgrade needs a modern, reliable, clean, ecological, frequent, branched and accessible public transport, by which we will be able to reduce the number of private vehicles and all the unnecessary costs that come with owning and maintaining them. In Europe, public transport sees a lot of investment, which we cannot say is the case in Serbia”, says Igor Velić, traffic engineer.

Elizabet Paunović, public health expert believes that there are several positive examples in Belgrade and other cities.

She, however, also reminds us that, for the impact to be higher, these activities would have to become a practice and not remain just an example.

Let’s say that time travel is possible – and that we can teleport ourselves to 2041. What will happen to us there depends on how we behave in the present moment. Early and systematic involvement of the public can prevent the implementation of harmful planning solutions. And more than that – such solutions can be replaced by more meaningful, purposeful proposals made by experts, non-governmental organizations, and ourselves the citizens, that can submit to the City Administration. To what extent will these proposals be incorporated into future ones – time will tell, however, what is certain is that the public must not neglect its right and ability to influence public discussions and thus try to prevent harmful decisions made by authorities.

Članak How much do urban planning and traffic affect air pollution in Belgrade? se pojavljuje prvo na Oblakoder.