JOHOR BAHRU, 1 October 2015 – Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) has set up a temporary station to enable local air quality monitoring work to be carried out.
The Director of UTM Sustainable Campus, Assoc. Prof. Ir. Dr. Mohd. Fadhil Md. Din said the establishment of the station is aimed at measuring the actual local air quality. This is necessary as the nearest Larkin Lama air monitoring station is 13 kilometers away from the campus.
“In addition to the establishment of the station, we also took the initiative to set up a haze task force at the university level led by the Acting Vice Chancellor, Prof. Dr. Azlan Abdul Rahman”.
“The station will be used continuously until the haze problem is under control. The goal of the UTM air monitoring station is to get a more accurate reading of the Air Pollutant Index (API), to be used by local communities and the UTM entire community as a basis to guide their outside activities,” he said.
The results of the API readings at UTM stations will be cross-referenced with data released by the Larkin Lama Station which is managed by the Department of Environment and the data released by the North Singapore Station.
Prof. Fadhil said the UTM station uses two tools namely Air Particle Measuring Device and Element in Gas Measurement Device.
“Data will be collected every one hour by the Sustainable Campus Unit with the assistance of the Department of Environmental Engineering, the Faculty of Civil Engineering (FKA) and UTM Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Unit.
“The air quality data collection is done three times a day at 9 am, 12 noon and 4 pm respectively and will be sent to the task force for the purpose of disseminating the information and making management decisions pertaining to UTM activities,” he said.
