Kabul Air Quality and its challenges by Mohammad Osman

1. PM2.5 Emission Sources, Health Effects and Possible Control Strategies in
Kabul, the Capital of Afghanistan
By
Mohammad Osman
Project Adviser
Professor George
June 2015

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Table of contents
1.0 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………3
2.0 Kabul PM2.5 emission Sources and health effect……………………………………4
3.0 Adopting methods from outside sources ……………….……………………….......7
4.0 Health Benefits…………………………………………………………………...…...8
5.0 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………....…9
6.0 References…………………………………………………………………………..…10

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Abstract
In the article “In Kabul, air pollution a bigger killer than war” Mustafa Kazemi (2011)
writes that every year around 3,000 people die in Kabul city due to air pollution whereas the total
mortality rate due to war across the country is 2,777 cases. Since 2001, Kabul city’s population
has grown from four hundred thousand to six million people. As a result, according to Asian
Development Bank (2006) the issue of Kabul air pollution is becoming a sever concern for the
country’s citizens and the government of Afghanistan. Lack of mass public transportation, use of
old and smoky cars, diesel power generation, and vast use of coal and wood by households, are
the main reasons behind the Kabul air pollution’s catastrophe. The U.S EPA standards suggest
that annual PM2.5 concentration should be kept below 15μg/m3
whereas it is 99.5μg/m3
in Kabul
(Sediqi, 2009). Since Afghanistan has no air quality regulations due to years of conflict in the
country, it needs to adopt practices that helped other developed countries with their high PM2.5
concentration in the air. This paper introduces the most effective and less time consuming
approaches to be adopted in Kabul. First is the California PM2.5 control strategy which mainly
covers government regulations, public awareness and integrated PM2.5 control system (Hu et al,
2013). The second method is removal of PM2.5 by planting trees which was conducted in the
United States. PM2.5 removal was modeled in ten cities of the U.S by planting trees in different
locations in urban areas within those cities. The outcomes of this practice were astonishing. The
results suggested that the amount of PM2.5 removed from this practice varied from 4.7 to 64.5
tons (Newak et al, 2013). Adopting such methods that the Afghan government can afford will
help the country to benefit both in terms of saving Afghan lives and avoiding extra health
expenses. In conclusion, the main aim of this paper is to recognize the main sources of high
PM2.5 concentration in Kabul’s air and adopt the most appropriate air quality regulations from
outside sources to meet the ambient air quality standards suggested by WHO.

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1.0 Introduction
In recent years, the issue of air pollution in Kabul city has changed to one of the biggest
concerns for the people and the government of Afghanistan. Being unlimited before 1980s, the
visibility in Kabul has decreased to less than a hundred meters in most weekdays. Findings show
that the high levels of PM2.5 and PM10 are the main constituents of Kabul air pollution
catastrophe (Kazemi, 2011). The dramatic population increase of the city since 2000, use of old
trucks and buses & unavailability of paved ways for the ever increasing transportation of the city,
and vast use of biomass by point and area sources (Figure 1) are the main reasons why the Kabul
air quality has deteriorated considerably (ABD, 2006). As a result, the rate of morbidity and
mortality due to high levels of PM2.5 concentration (99.5 mg/m3, annual) in the city is
amazingly high.
Kabul is the most populous and urbanized province all across Afghanistan. One of the
main factors that mainly contributed to the bad air quality in Kabul is the unexpected increase in
its population (ABD, 2006). Considering 269 persons living per hectare, estimates show that
Kabul is 3 times denser than New York City (Sediqi, 2009). Due to excessive fuel and wood
burning, oil heating, and industrial activities beyond the National Air Quality Standards, Kabul
has experienced a high PM2.5concentration.
Another contributor to high level of PM2.5 in Kabul is the emissions that come from
excessive number of cars, trucks and buses. The city holds 8 times more number of cars than its
capacity (ABD, 2006). Operation of more cars in a less capacity road system overwhelms the
traffic and causes traffic jam that is prolonging the travel time for each vehicle. As a result of
increase in travel time per car in Kabul, more emission of PM2.5 constituents occurs in the
atmosphere.
As a result of bad air quality, according to ABD (2006), annually around 3,000 people die
in Kabul. According to the Ministry of Health in Afghanistan, the high level of PM 2.5 poses a
large amount of health threat to the people of Kabul. Since the size of the particulates is less than
2.5 micrograms, it lodge deep into the lungs and cause a large number of respiratory diseases for
humans. Frequent cases of asthma, shortness of breath, and hearth disease among people suggest
that the issue of high concentration PM2.5 in Kabul air should be taken seriously (ABD, 2006).
Thus, after recognizing the sources of PM2.5 and its health effect, NEPA needs to take
some serious measures in order to improve the air quality in Kabul. Being a war torn country,
Afghanistan does not have the capacity and the potential to develop its own strategies of utterly
controlling the air pollutant sources. Therefore, this paper attempts to suggest the most cost
effect and applicable ways that helped other countries of same situation to bring their PM 2.5
concentration down. The first easily adoptable strategy by NEPA in Afghanistan can be Modeled
PM 2.5 removal in ten U.S cities that mainly includes planation of trees. The smog issues and
PM 2.5 control using the experience of California in Beijing, China is can be another suitable
strategy for PM control in Kabul. This type of strategy mainly focuses on government
regulations and public awareness of harm effects of PM2.5.

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2.0 Kabul PM2.5 emission Sources and health effect
Being the capital of Afghanistan, Kabul is home for numerous businesses that create job
opportunities. Many people from remote areas relocated in Kabul in order to have a better
income and life. As a result, the city has become overwhelmingly crowded (Sediqi, 2009). A key
factor that mainly contributed to the bad air quality and high concentration PM2.5 in Kabul is the
issue population growth (Figure 2). Based on the Ministry of interior in Afghanistan, the
population of Kabul has grown from 1.78 million in 1999 to almost 5 million in 2013. Thus, to
meet the Kabul’s ever increasing population demand, more energy production and more exhaust
emissions is associated. Also, increase in population raises the demand for the transportation and
vehicle use. According to a report by Afghanistan’s Transportation Department, more 400,000
cars operate in Kabul whereas the city roads are only designed for 50,000 cars (ABD, 2006). As
shown below, Figure 2, Motor vehicles exhaust emission is the second most pollutant of air in
Kabul city (Sediqi, 2009).
Figure 1: Kabul air pollution sources map from Asian Development Bank, 2006

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Figure 2: Sources of Air Pollution in Kabul
As shown in Figure 2, there are numerous sources that emit toxics to the air of Kabul. Among
all, open burning (heating, cooking, industry), motor vehicles, population growth and
construction are the main factors. According to ABD (2006), the average 24-hours concentration
of NOx and SO2, the main constituents of PM2.5 in Kabul are 241 and 27 ug/m2 respectively.
The overall annual emission of criteria pollutant in Kabul’s air is shown in Table 2 below:

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Prominent research organizations in the U.S and Europe found that there is a direct correlation
between increase in PM2.5 and lung cancer mortality. Since fine particulate matter with the size
of less than 2.5 micrograms (PM2.5) penetrate into lungs easily and pose serious health risks to
humans and animals, controlling its emission sources is a top priority for many developed and
developing countries (Newak et al, 2013) . In Kabul, NEPA has identified the annual amount of
PM2.5 sources, emissions sources and concentration as the following (Table 3).
Table 3: Annual emission Amount and concentration of PM2.5 from different sources in Kabul
PM 2.5 Emission Sources Amount in ton/year Concentration at 250m depth ug/m3
Motor Vehicle (Mobile) 24564.41
99.5Burning wood and coal
(Area)
6296
Diesel Power generation and
other (Point)
105.07
Total 30965.48
The health effect associated with PM2.5 in Kabul is one of the most serious issues in the
country. According to Ministry of Public Health of Afghanistan, annually around 3000 people
lose their lives in Kabul as result of respiratory and cardiac diseases associated with inhalation of
fine particulate matter (Kazemi, 2011). Moreover, records suggest that during a six year span of
time, around 480,000 thousand people across Kabul were registered with respiratory problem
due to air pollution (Kazemi, 2011). Since the issue of Kabul air quality became a regional issue,
Asian Development bank conducted a survey to collect feedback from the people in Kabul. A
summary of the study is shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Summary of Kabul’s people opinion on their cities air quality

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The Government of Afghanistan while being assisted by the Asian Development Bank has
executed the Kabul Air Quality Management (KAQM) project to collect the air quality ambient
data as shown in (Table 2). We see that the level of toxics in Kabul air is extremely high. In the
following sections, this paper tries to find the most appropriate ways of dealing with high level
of PM2.5 and reducing it.
3.0 Adopting methods from outside sources to remove PM2.5 in Kabul
Despite the fact that the government of Afghanistan has worked hard to improve the air
quality in Kabul, the results were not very fruitful. There are two main obstacles for the air
quality management in Kabul that causes the attempts to be less successful. First, the economy of
the country is not fairly stable. Thus, the government Afghanistan cannot launch costly projects
such as installation of filters in the cars or industries to deal with the problem (Sediqi, 2009).
Secondly, the day by day population increase in the country has turned to a growing tragedy.
Population growth increases demand for energy. And finally more toxic emission occurs to the
air. Adoption of cost effective and less time consuming methods of PM2.5 removal should be
considered.
One of the most useful ways that can help the high concentration of fine particulate to
reduce in Kabul is adoption of ‘the PM2.5 Pollutant Control Strategies in China’ method which
is essentially a borrowed strategy from California air pollution control settings. This method is
mainly about prevention than the cure (Hu et al, 2013). In other words, through adoption of the
steps that the California PM2.5 control promotes, the government, industries, and people all
collectively contribute to control toxic emission in the air. According Hu et al (2013) the
following are the specific strategies for this method:
 Establishing an Integrated control strategy for SO2, CO and NO2 concurrently.
 Country wide and state wide effort for PM2.5 control engaging the local and
governmental entities
 Local and central governments’ engagement in air pollution control such as passing laws,
funding and reinforcing.
 Avoiding excessive vehicle emission through join work of department of transportation
and EPA.
Moreover, another useful strategy for Kabul PM2.5 control can be the implementation of
Modeled PM2.5 removal by trees in ten U.S cities method. In the U.S the results of this study
suggest that the annual amount of PM2.5 that trees remove from the air varies from 4.7 to 64.5
tons per tree (Newak et al, 2013). This study included a few preliminary steps before the results
were presented. First, the leaf surface area of trees for the study was determined. Then,
considering the wind, suspension and deposition of fine particles on leaves were calculated.
Finally the results were presented. According to the findings of the research, the net removal of
PM2.5 for each square meter of tree covered area varies from 0.13 to 0.36 g/m/year (Newak et
al, 2013). This air quality improvement had a strong impact on health improvement of the people

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in these states. The details of the study such as total amount PM2.5 removal, health benefit
values, air quality improvement percentile and so forth due to trees are presented in Table 4.
Thus, planting trees can be one of the most cost effective and efficient ways to deal with Kabul
PM2.5 high level.
4.0 Health Benefits
Health cost due to inhalation of toxics by people in Kabul is shown in Table 5. The total
annual amount that Afghans spend on their respiratory related diseases is about 5289 million Afg
which is equivalent to 90 million US dollars (ABD, 2006).
Reducing the emission of toxic pollutants can help people use their money in other useful ways
to benefit their lives and their children. According to ABD, a 25 percent reduction in emission of
toxics from Kabul air can annually save about 750 lives and 26 million dollars.

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5.0 Conclusion
Leaving 3 decades of harsh and bloody war behind, people in Kabul city are facing yet
another life threatening challenge which is air pollution. 46 % of typical residents of Kabul claim
that they have difficulty breathing due to bad air of the city. The lives that the air pollution
claims in Kabul now (3000 deaths annually) appear to be worse than the time when the country
was in civil war. Since the toxic emission by mobile, point and area sources are rapidly
increasing in Kabul; air pollution issue has become a growing concern for the government and
people of Afghanistan. According to sediqi (2009) sharp increase in population, excessive
number of cars operating in the city, and vast use of coal and wood by households (open
burning), are the main reasons behind Kabul’s air pollution catastrophe. Since Afghanistan does
not have any air quality rule and regulation by its own, it needs to adopt the most applicable and
cost effective ways from outside sources. This paper suggests that the adoption of California
PM2.5 control strategies and the U.S ten cities method for PM2.5 removal by trees can be very
useful for Kabul because both of the methods are cost effective and can be applied in
Afghanistan. The California rules for the purpose of PM2.5 removal promotes the proper
government regulations, public awareness, regional and industrial collaboration (prevention of
toxic emission to the air) whereas the U.S ten cities model removes the existed PM2.5 from the
air (Cure). If the Afghan government controls the toxic emission to a save level and cleans the
existed bad air using the suggested methods, annually it will save over 500 peoples’ lives and
millions of dollars within the country.

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References
Asian Development Bank,. Kabul Air Quality Management. Kabul: Brampton Ontario, L6W 3P1
Canada, 2006. Web. January 2014. Strategy Report.
http://www.eng-consult.com/pub/2006-1220-Strategy-Report.pdf
Kazemi, M. (2011). “In Kabul, air pollution a bigger killer than war”: KBLPHYS Organization
http://phys.org/news/2011-06-kabul-air-pollution-bigger-killer.html
Hu, David., Jiang, Juyuan. (2013). “A Study of Smog Issues and PM2.5 Pollutant Control
Strategies in China” Journal of Environmental Protection, 2013, 4, 746-752
http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jep.2013.4708
Nowak, D.J., Hirabayashi, S, Bodine, A. “Modeled PM2.5 removal by trees in ten U.S. cities
and associated health effects”: Environmental Pollution 178 (2013) 395-402
Sediqi, A. (2009). “A PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT OF AIR QUALITY IN KABUL”.
Afghan Ministry of Mines Publication 56:1, 68-83
Yang, Jun., Chang, Yamin., Yan, Pengbo. (2015). “Ranking the suitability of common urban
trees pecies for controlling PM2.5 pollution”
Atmospheric Pollution Research 6 (2015): 267‐277