The network of air quality monitoring stations in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina will be completed with the installation of measuring stations in Mostar, which is expected by spring next year, confirmed Enis Omerčić from the FBiH Hydrometeorological Institute at the presentation of the results of the three-year project to combat air pollution in BiH “IMPAQ”.
He emphasized that the FBiH Hydrometeorological Institute is working with other operators from the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina to complete the basic network of stations, which would cover the entire territory of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in more polluted and sensitive environments.
This will certainly contribute to air quality monitoring, which is the primary activity of the Institute.
“The mentioned project helped us a lot technically. We have gained an enormous amount of knowledge considering that we do not have many opportunities to share this knowledge because there are few of us in this country. Also, the implementation of the project enabled us to get two modern mobile stations, as well as laboratory equipment, which we could not have bought ourselves,” said Omerčić.
The project showed that one of the biggest polluters in Bosnia and Herzegovina is traffic because cars emit more pollutants, three times more than the prescribed vehicle norm. This means that the implementation of the Euronorm is needed, as well as a change in energy sources.
Air quality expert at the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency Sarah Brnekow worked on the technical aspects of air quality within the project. She pointed out that a lot of data has been collected about the air in BiH, stating that the quality of that data is better than it was.
“Based on that, we did research on the sources of air pollution, and 30 percent of the pollution in Sarajevo comes from traffic, the rest is industry and other types of pollution,” Brnekow added.
One of the beneficiaries of the project is the Republika Srpska Hydrometeorological Institute, on whose behalf Ranka Radić pointed out that thanks to this project, air quality monitoring in the Republika Srpska has been significantly improved, and the Institute has received valuable equipment.
Today’s event was organized by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA), where the results of the project and upcoming initiatives in the fight against air pollution were presented.
