Malaysia Air Pollution
Greenhouse gas emission is one of the main reasons for air pollution. Air pollution has become a serious issue around the world. In this article, we are going to discuss Malaysia’s air condition by its Air Pollution Index (API) as well as the possible causes of air pollution.
The scatter diagram shows the daily API values of each area throughout Malaysia from October of 2005 to July of 2019. Before we discuss Malaysia’s air quality, we first need to know the status meant by the API values. According to Malaysia’s Ministry of Environment And Water, air quality can be classified into 5 levels: API value in the range of 0–50 signifies a good air quality, 51–100 signifies moderate air quality, 101–200 means the air quality is in an unhealthy status, 201–300 means very unhealthy and value greater than 300 shows that the air quality is hazardous. When we focus back on the scatter diagram, we noticed that most of the time, API values of the areas are below 100. The API values of Malaysia seldom spike up to a very unhealthy level and only exceed 300 twice over the previous years, which are in October 2010 and June 2013. It indicates that the air pollution level in Malaysia is still acceptable, by Malaysia’s standard,[i] which does not reach an unhealthy level that will seriously endanger human health or affect their daily life.
When we delve into the causes of Malaysia’s API values spike up to unhealthy level, we find out that the timings when Malaysia’s API values increase, which are August 2009, October 2010, June 2013, March and July 2014, October 2015, April 2017, August 2018 and June 2019, are perfectly aligned with the outbreak of Southeast Asian Haze. This haze is commonly claimed to be caused by forest fires resulting from slash-and-burn practices in Indonesia. It spreads quickly due to the dry season and affects Indonesia’s neighbouring countries, such as Malaysia and Singapore. Among the haze of these times, haze in 2013 was the most serious and led to the worst air quality Malaysia had in previous years.
The graph above shows the average API values of each state in Malaysia from 2005 to 2019. First, we noticed that the API values of each state did not exceed 100 on average, and were almost below 60, indicating that Malaysia’s air quality is stable at a decent level. Secondly, we find out that the states in Peninsular Malaysia, especially the west coast, have worse air quality compared to Sabah and Sarawak. As of 2019, the three states that leads in API value are Melaka, Negeri Sembilan and Pulau Pinang. Among these states, Melaka and Negeri Sembilan have maintained a relatively high API value while Pulau Pinang used to have a relatively low API value in 2005. The possible reason for Melaka to have a high API value is its geographic location that is near to the Indonesian island of Sumatra where the forest fire always takes place and causes haze. For Pulau Pinang, the increase of its API value may be caused by the increase of the number of factories which has heavy usage of fossil fuel that will produce air pollutants after combustion. [ii]
Although Malaysia’s air quality is still considered moderate, even good, it is still necessary for us to find out possible causes of air pollution, so that the authorities can keep an eye on those sectors to ensure good air quality in Malaysia. First, from the analysis above, we know that the main cause of Malaysia’s air pollution is the haze caused by the forest fire in Indonesia. Malaysia’s API values spike to an unhealthy level when the Southeast Asian haze spreads. This has affected Malaysian’s daily life as many activities, includes going to school as well as outdoor activities, need to be stopped due to the unhealthy air condition. Moreover, another possible main cause of Malaysia air pollution is vehicular emissions. According to the Department of Statistics Malaysia, 70.4% of the emission of pollutants to the atmosphere in 2017 were from motor vehicles. [iii]From the chart below, we noticed that the total number of registered road motor vehicles is increasing. As of 2019, there is almost double the number in 2008. This indicates that vehicular emissions will increase in the pace of the increase of the number of vehicles and eventually produce much air pollutants. Hence, the statistics show that vehicular emissions have the potential to become the main cause of Malaysia's air pollution.
In a nutshell, although Malaysia’s API value spikes to an unhealthy level at some specific period, Malaysia’s air quality is still satisfying at this moment. However, we must still foresee the possible causes of air pollution, so that the authorities have the direction to develop prevention plans to prevent deterioration of Malaysia’s air quality.
[i] This is different a little different from WHO’s guidelines, which you can refer to in our previous article at: https://medium.com/my-climate-observatory/air-pollution-in-southeast-asia-2c7a84df2af8
[ii] IQAir, “Air Quality in Penang”, https://www.iqair.com/us/malaysia/penang
[iii] Compendium of Environment Statistics 2018, https://www.dosm.gov.my/v1/index.php?r=column/cthemeByCat&cat=162&bul_id=U3p3RVY0aGtGS08yTDY2cEpraDFlUT09&menu_id=NWVEZGhEVlNMeitaMHNzK2htRU05dz09#:~:text=The%20emission%20of%20pollutants%20to,incidents%20recorded%20was%20498%20cases.
