On 20th March, 2021, Mr. Athapol Charoenshunsa, Director General of Pollution Control Department (PCD), Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE) revealed that MNRE had invited the associated agencies: Chulalongkorn University, Mahidol University, Chiang Mai University, Prince of Songkla University, Rajamangala University of Technology Lanna, Asian Institute of Technology, Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), The Engineering Institute of Thailand under H.M. The King’s Patronage, National Telecom Public Company Limited, National Research Council of Thailand, and National Institute of Metrology (Thailand) to attend the meeting on “how to advantage sensors to build the country PM2.5 monitoring network”. Mr. Athapol said that the conclusions of the meeting were as follows:
Mr. Athapol said that the conclusions of the meeting were as follows:
1. The meeting approved the integration of agencies conducting the projects of air quality measurement, academician, and sensor manufacturers in Thailand such as EGAT has an installation plan of 200 particulate matter measuring points in the area of communities and the area of EGAT. Chulalongkorn University would execute the Sensor for All Project by installing PM2.5 measuring sensors totally 1000 points all over the country, National Telecom Public Company Limited would executed the National Environment Open Data Project by installation PM2.5 measuring sensors totally 8,000 points all over the country, and Chiang Mai University would maintain the air quality measuring instrument network (Dust Boy) all over the country for above 400 points and the expand target 2000-3000 points every the sub-district all over the country, etc..The agreement made was to perform technology sharing in order to improve the quality and efficiency of sensors by employing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data technology to report results rapidly and keep up with the situation that respond to the new generations leading to further development.
2. The meeting approved that the PCD should provide the air quality measuring instrument installation manual to be the same practices.
3. The meeting approved that MNRE should establish the national central network to be the air quality measuring center. Initially, the air quality network should be divided into 2 types: the measurement network according to the legal method and the other method of measurement network. In this regard, the meeting requested the public sector to prepare the technology disruption. It was expected that the air quality measuring technology on mobile phone will be in the near future, Mr. Athapol said.
