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Joint Research Project on Formation Mechanism of Ozone, VOCs, and PM2.5 and Proposal of Countermeasure Scenario

Environment / Energy (Global-scale environmental issues)

United Mexican States

Finished

Joint Research Project on Formation Mechanism of Ozone, VOCs, and PM2.5 and Proposal of Countermeasure Scenario

Scenarios to Resolve Air Pollution Problems Associated with Modernization

Principal Investigator

- Prof.
  WAKAMATSU Shinji
  Faculty of Agriculture, Ehime University

ODA Recipient Country

United Mexican States

Research Institutions in Japan

Ehime University

Research Institutions in Counterpart Country

National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change (INECC)

Adoption fiscal year

FY 2010

Research Period

5 Years

Overview of the Research Project

Comprehensive analysis of the differences between Japan and Mexico in order to devise air pollution measures
Up until the early 1990s, Mexico City suffered serious air pollution caused by automobile exhaust, but environmental improvement projects managed to avert a crisis. In recent years, however, a new type of air pollution has become a problem: ozone and other chemical substances react with one another and produce health hazards. This project will compare the situation in Mexico and Japan － in terms of air pollution sources, climate, topography, inflow of polluted air from neighboring countries and outflow from Mexico to other countries － in order to propose effective air pollution measures.

Using Mexico as the point of departure for cleaning up the world's air
The project is working to develop systems for measuring the composition of air polluting substances and systems for measuring the effect on the human body. In the future, these techniques will be rolled out from Mexico, one of the leading countries of Central and South America, to neighboring countries, in order to improve the air environment both regionally and globally.

Photo gallery

Personal exposure survey conducted in the Centro Historico. A study of air pollution on a street that was recently designated a no-car zone. Each researcher carried a measuring unit to determine how much air pollution is being inhaled.

Measurements conducted simultaneously with different types of rawinsonde (upper-air observation equipment) at the Servicio Meteorologico Nacional in Mexico