Seoul, Beijing to share air quality data in real time

South Korea and China agreed to share air quality information in real time, upgrading the level of bilateral cooperation to protect public health from dust blowing in mainly from Chinese deserts.

During a summit Saturday, South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang inked a memorandum of understanding to share air quality data within an hour of measurement. Under the agreement, the measurement information will be transmitted through an exclusive file transfer protocol, officials said. This is the first time Beijing is sharing the data through an exclusive file transfer line with a foreign country, they added.

The data will include the air quality information of three Korean regions ― Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon ― and 35 Chinese sites including Beijing, Hebei, Jilin and Tianjin.

The two states will also share the measurement data of the yellow dust of 40 Chinese cities, including the source sites, such as Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang.

Seoul has voiced the need to share such information as part of its efforts to improve the accuracy of the forecast of the level of yellow dust and fine dust. Previously, Korea was able to gain yellow dust data of only four sites from the Chinese meteorological agency, having difficulties in raising the forecast accuracy.

The number of sites will later be expanded to 74 Chinese cities, the authorities said.

Seoul and Beijing have closely put efforts into preventing the dust over the years. In June, the two parties launched a joint fine dust research group to better determine the cause of the fine dust and improve the forecast system.

According to the environmental ministry, about 30 percent to 50 percent of local air pollutants come from China.

While the yellow dust mostly originates from Inner Mongolia, dry regions, and deserts in China and Mongolia, very fine particles are generated by human activities, such as running factories, cars and heating in China.

Korea has seen a rise in the frequency of yellow dust and fine particulate polution in recent years, especially, when the neighboring country started heating activities.

Earlier last month, fine dust from China blanketed the peninsula for a week. The yellow dust was spotted last week in the West Sea, Seoul and the surrounding area, which is the first yellow dust detected in the fall in six years, officials said.

By Lee Hyun-jeong (rene@heraldcorp.com)