Real-time Air Quality data for is now available for Indonesia. 10 stations located in major cities across Indonesia are measuring in real-time PM₁₀ pollution.

The monitoring stations are operated by BMKG (Badan Meteorologi Klimatologi dan Geofisika), the Indonesian Department of Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics.

oOo

The currently active stations are located in: Central Jakarta City, Medan City, Pekanbaru City, Jambi City, Palembang City, Pontianak, Banjarbaru City, Samarinda City.
oOo

As we explained in one of our previous articles, all the AQI figures published on the World Air Quality Index project are currently ^[1] using the US EPA standard. While the Indonesian EPA has defined (like any other country) its own AQI scale, called 'IPSU' (for Indeks Standar Pencemar Udara), this is actually not a problem since the breakpoints used in the Indonesian standard for PM₁₀ are actually more strict than the US EPA standard! The graph on the right shows the comparison for PM₁₀ AQI scale for China, US and Indonesia.


oOo

One important point to notice is that there is no real-time PM_2.5 real-time monitoring available. This is actually a common practice in South Asia, as many of the neighboring countries with Air Quality data available (namely Thailand, Malaysia and Brunei) are also only providing PM₁₀ (exceptions are the Philippines and Vietnam).

While we do rely on BMKG to set-up the needed PM_2.5 monitoring stations (hopefully starting with Jakarta), one might want to consider looking at our research report for deducting PM_2.5 from PM₁₀. Note that to be completely relevant and accurate, the PM_2.5 to PM₁₀ AQI convertion formula described in the report needs to be adapated to Jakarta since the typical 'dust type' in Indonesia is different from South Korea (the conclusion in the research report is based on South Korean data). This is actually something we might test-pilot conjointly with BMKG, so stay stuned (we will update this article).
oOo

Summary of the AQI levels, color coding and description used in Indonesia:



--

[1] We are now working on an option which will allow users to select any AQI scale they want.