METHODOLOGY TO CALCULE OF AIR QUALITY INDICE IN CUENCA CITY, ECUADOR

Abstract

Currently, 98 % of cities in poor countries do not have air quality standards according to the World Health Organization (WHO, 2018) and the city of Cuenca - Ecuador, is not exempt of this problem due to demographic growth, technological development and excessive use of transport that have caused an increase in air pollution. For this reason, in this paper is proposed a procedure for calculating an annual quantitative air quality index (ICA) that integrates emission inventories from pollutant sources, dispersion modeling and monitoring of main air pollutants using stations with passive monitoring and semi-automatic validated. The procedure for ICA calculation in the city constitutes a scientific evaluation tool that can be applied at local level in cities of developing countries.