Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Program to Improve the Air Quality of Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico 2010-2015

2010; Elsevier BV; Volume: 2; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.proenv.2010.10.091

1878-0296

Margarito Quintero, Lourdes Meza, Miguel Canales, Silvia Ahumada,

Geography and Environmental Studies in Latin America

The program to improve the air quality of Mexicali 2010-2015 (PROAIR) represents the joint effort of the society, of the local economic sector and the three levels of government to design and implant a set of actions with the objective of controlling the sources of pollutants that degrade the air quality of the city. Due to its great urban dynamism, industry and entrepreneural activities, as much as its position in the neighborhood with the USA, Mexicali plays an important role in the national economy and makes it one of the most important cities at the USA-Mexican border. The growth of the city brings along social and economic benefits, and also problems related with the urban development and with the availability of infrastructure and services, which at the same time generates problems of environmental type. The analysis of the air quality was based on 11 years (1997-2008) of accumulated data from 6 monitoring stations located in the city, period on which the first PROAIR of Mexicali 2000-2005 was put into practice. The most important findings are described as follows: exceedences by O3 and NO2 diminished since 1997. CO is the pollutant with the greater amount of exceedences registered, specially in the winter. SO2 did not show violations to the norm at any time. PM10 showed exceedences for most part of the year as much as PM2.5. Based on that Mexicali is classified as non–attainment for CO, PM10 and PM2.5.