Citizens fear that misplaced fine dust detectors may be inaccurate

An Incheon Health and Environment Research Center official checks a fine dust detector on the center’s roof on Feb. 26, 2014, when the city’s worst fine dust contamination level in the day ― 140 micrograms per cubic meter ― was recorded in Gojan-dong, Namdong-gu. / Yonhap

By Ko Dong-hwan

More than 80 percent of fine dust detectors in Gyeonggi Province are installed wrongly, with citizens fearing the readings may be unreliable.

Of 73 detectors, including seven ground-level ones next to roads, 52 are at heights between 11 and 20 meters and seven are between 21 and 30 meters, according to the Gyeonggi Health and Environment Research Center.

The Ministry of Environment stipulates that the detectors must be installed at heights between 1.5 and 10 meters, the heights at which people usually breathe in the air.

“Many fine dust detectors have been installed on public building rooftops, where it is easy to get permission and to install them,” a research center official said. “But we found from last year’s analysis that readings on fine dust do not differ much because of height difference.”

But concerned citizens complained that if detectors were at heights of 10 floors or higher, within a quiet village of low-rise mansions or in an area with lots of trees, the readings might be inaccurate.

People believed that the lower the area, the worse its risk of air contamination.

Technically, however, the regulation makes an exception that in an apartment area where many residents live above 10 meters, the community’s contamination reading should be represented by a detector installed at below 30 meters.

“We will expand the number of detectors, especially the ground-level ones, which will be installed below 10 meters,” the official said.