Question: Where is the most polluted place in the world apart from China?

Liza Selley answered on 18 Jun 2018:

Hi fieryfox

Have a look at this map http://maps.who.int/airpollution/ it shows the levels of particles (one of the most toxic components of air pollution) that have been measured across the globe. The green parts in Europe and North America have healthy levels of pollution while the red have really bad levels of pollution. The yellow countries could be better, could be worse.

Looking at the map, there is a lot of red in Africa, the middle East and Asia. Developing countries often have high levels of pollution and for traffic pollution, Indian cities like Mumbai are the worst after China. This tends to be because pollution emissions aren’t limited by law and the countries are very focused on improving their cities and economy rather than protecting their health.

I was quite surprised to see that North Africa and the Middle East were so red on the map but I think this is due to their dusty environment. The instruments that measure particles in the air don’t know what type of particle they are measuring, they just count things that are small enough to fit inside their sensors. I think this could be why a lot of desert areas look so polluted on this map – dust and sand may not sound like pollution to us in the UK but I suspect they cause a lot of lung damage in these areas.

Hope this answers your question, feel free to ask more!

Liza