• Nearly 99% of Spain breathes air polluted beyond WHO recommended levels
• Suspended particles, NO2 and SO2 said to be alarmingly high in urban areas
Nearly every resident of Spain living in any part of the country breathed air in 2015 that was contaminated beyond the levels recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in a year that saw the country’s overall air-quality deteriorate for the first time since 2008, according to a new report by the environmental organisation Ecologistas en Acción.
According to the report, 45.9 million people (98.6 percent of the population) were exposed to levels of air pollutants beyond those recommended by the WHO, as compared to 44.6 million in 2014 (95.5 percent of the total). High levels of suspended particles, nitrogen dioxide, ozone and sulfur dioxide were among the most common contaminants breathed in by residents of Spain on a daily basis, noted the report, which was compiled using data from 700 official air-quality control stations across 136 monitoring zones nationwide.
The report also noted that high levels of nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and suspended particles were particularly troubling in some of the country’s largest cities, where the bulk of Spain’s urban population lives, including: Barcelona, A Coruña, Córdoba, Granada, Madrid, Murcia, Las Palmas (Gran Canaria) and Valencia.
► Read More in Spanish at Público and 20minutos …
► Download Full Report in Spanish from Ecologistas en Acción, here …
