Smoke-haze: A transboundary air pollution issue in Southeast Asia

18 March 2018

Transboundary haze pollution affects about half of the countries in Southeast Asia (Varkkey 2017) and is defined by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as “haze pollution whose physical origin is situated wholly or in part within the area under the national jurisdiction of one Member State and which is transported into the area under the jurisdiction of another Member State” (ASEAN 2002).
The importance of this issue lies in the fact that smoke haze pollution has been occurring for several decades in Southeast Asia and with each passing year the pollution gets worse and lasts longer (Lin et al 2017). While the haze in 2015 was the longest on record (Tan 2015) the pollution standards index (PSI) data from Singapore has exhibited increasingly higher peaks. The longer the issue goes unaddressed, the greater the public and environmental health impacts and economic costs become. Furthermore, it risks straining relations between the countries within the ASEAN region.

Seules 12% des villes disposent de mesures de la qualité de l'air conformes aux normes de l'OMS