CHMI: Air quality in Czechia remained good despite energy crisis

Air quality in Czechia remained good last year, despite some people returning to cheaper heating methods because of high energy costs. Concentrations of air pollutants, with the exception of ground-level ozone, reached their lowest or second-lowest levels since 2011. This was mainly due to favourable weather conditions at the beginning of last year. In some municipalities, however, experts recorded a deterioration in household heating practices linked to the energy crisis. The Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (CHMI) said this today in its preliminary report.

In 2022, annual average concentrations of carcinogenic benzo(a)pyrene exceeded the air quality limit at around 38 percent of monitoring stations—19 out of the total 52 stations with sufficient measurements for assessment. These figures are similar to those recorded in the previous two years.

„The highest annual average concentrations of benzo(a)pyrene have long been recorded at all types of stations across most of the Moravian-Silesian Region,“ said Václav Novák of the CHMI’s Air Quality Information System Department.