Mexico City Document: Integrated Air Quality Study of the Monterrey Metropolitan Area

On November 13, 2002, the Air Quality Planning Workshop for the Monterrey Metropolitan Area (MMA). The event was organized jointly by the Integrated Program on Urban, Regional and Global Air Pollution, based on MIT under the local direction of Drs. Mario and Luisa Molina, and by ITESM, under the local organization of Dr. Gerardo Mejía, Professor and Researcher of ITESM. Dr Molina and a group of Mexican and US researchers area currently working in a study to find solutions to the air quality problem faced by the Mexico City Metropolitan Area (MCMA). This is the first case of study where and integrated assessment approach is used to analyse the problem. The Program is extending now the experience acquired in the MCMA case to other cities of Mexico. The MMA air shed would be the second case where the integrated assessment methodology would be applied to study its air quality.

The integrated assessment methodology brings together researchers in different areas related to air quality problems to find reliable solutions considering technical, economic, social and political issues. The study areas include scientific issues related to monitoring and pollutant characterization, emission inventories of the different sources of air pollutants, health assessment studies, air quality modelling, control strategies evaluation procedures, social and policy issues related to air pollution, and environmental education. The objective is to have a better understanding of the problems that allows to identify the most promising and robust strategies, considering cost-benefit criteria and flexibility of implantation and operation under different environmental and economic conditions, in such a way that guidelines and recommendations can be given to decision makers to prevent and control air pollution.

The planning workshop for the MMA took place in the Sala Mayor de Rectoría del ITESM. In the meeting 35 people participated. The group included Drs. Molina and researchers from ITESM and the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, representatives of SEMARNAT, the Subsecretaría de Ecología of the Government of Nuevo Léon and of the direction of ecology of the municipalities that conform the MMA (Monterrey, Santa Catarina, San Pedro Garza García, Guadalupe, Apodaca, Escobedo, and San Nicolás de los Garza), as well as research assistants and a representative of CEMX. The workshop was inaugurated by Dr. Alberto Bustani Adem, Rector of ITESM, and by Mr. Julián de la Garza Casto, Subminister of Ecology of the Government of the State of Nuevo León.

The Subsecretaría de Ecología started the activities of the workshop with a presentation and discussion of the air quality statistics in the MMA. Dr. Mario Molina continued with an explanation of the MCMA case of study. He answered doubts about the integrated assessment methodology used and the purpose of the MCMA study and its application to the MMA. Several presentation followed related to health issues where studies about the correlation of air pollution levels and visits to hospitals, toxicology and effects of biogenic pollutants were discussed. Then studies were presented and discussed about physical and chemical characterization of pollutants, air quality modelling, data management and visualization, and health and modelling data integration and their link with economic studies to estimate cost and benefits of the strategies. In the last session economic evaluation tools, environmental legislation and environmental education issues were presented and discussed. It was emphasized the importance of developing environmental education material and program to have an important impact in the community and to create consciousness about the air quality problem in the MMA: Finally, priority research areas were detected to initiate a project. These areas include particle characterization, hydrocarbon speciation, pollutant monitoring, emission inventory actualisation, air quality modelling, health effects studies, design and development of data bases and information management, economic evaluation of air pollution impacts, legal mechanisms and economic incentives, and social communication and educational material development for different groups of the society.

The next steps of the project include the publication of a report with the results of the workshop and purse that the federal and state authorities include the study of the MMA air shed in the environmental agenda. Then, a follow-up meeting will be organized with the working group to analyse financial sources and the focusing in research topics. This will allow to develop a working plan for the next years.

Since the beginning of the air quality monitoring activities in 1993 with the Sistema Integral de Monitoreo Ambiental (SIMA), that includes five automatic monitoring stations, the data shows that the MMA has PM10 and ozone air pollution problems. Every year the PM10 annual average concentration standard of 50?g/m3 has been exceeded, except in 1997, that an annual average concentration of 42?g/ m3 is reported. However, this is an average value for the MMA and areas exist with higher average concentration that compensate with areas with lower average concentration. For the years of 2001 and 2002, the SIMA reports that the average annual concentration values have been incremented, reaching 59 and 120 ?g/m3 in the different monitoring stations. This may represent serious chronic problems in sensible population, mainly in children. The daily PM10 average standard of 150?g/m3 has been exceeded between 30 and 90 days per year in the period 1993 to 2001. In the case of ozone, the hourly air quality standard of 0.11 ppm has been exceeded in around 10% of the years in the period 1993 to 2001. In the last three years, the MMA has shown a dramatic increase in the vehicle fleet besides an important industrial and population growth, that may increase the air pollution problems. It is important to study the MMA air shed and take corrective actions before the problem becomes worse. The MCMA experience shows to be a complex and expensive problem to achieve important steps in its improvement. The MMA can anticipate a major problem by means of an appropriate administration of the air shed. The development of this project will generate the necessary information to support adequate decisions to prevent major air quality problems, avoiding high social costs that may be very important for the community of the MMA.

As part of the promotion activities, on Thursday, November 14, 2002, Dr. Mario Molina gave the conference Impact of Human Activities in the Atmosphere. This conference was sponsored by the Program ITESM-SEMARNAT on Sustainable Development. The conference was held in ITESM’s Sala Mayor de Rectoría and was transmitted by the Virtual University of ITESM to other remote rooms and locations in Mexico. The same day, Dr. Molina had a dinner with a small group of representatives of the industry to talk about the project being proposed for the MMA. The group shoed great interest in the project and expressed the interest in being involved in the project.

Dr. Gerardo M. Mejía Velázquez