ABSTRACT
Quantifying the air pollution conditions near peat fire-prone areas is very important to protect local people’s health and assess transboundary pollution in Southeast Asian countries and the impact on the global environment. This chapter reports the air pollution situation at Palangkaraya, located near the northern part of the Mega Rice Project (MRP) area in Kalimantan. Now MRP area became one of Indonesia’s peat fire-prone regions due to drainage channels more than 4000 km in length. As a result, a large and dry-prone peatland has been created, and devastating fires occurred under the super (powerful) El Niño in 1997. The air quality management system reported various air pollutant levels at Palangkaraya during moderate El Niño conditions in 2002. Maximum concentrations of PM10, SO2, CO, and O3 were observed on October 14, 2002, and their values were 1905, 85.8, 38.3, and 1003 × 10−6 g/m3, respectively. The high cost of O3 suggested the formation of photochemical smog. Super El Niño conditions occurred in 2015, and PM10 data were analyzed in conjunction with fire and precipitation data and satellite imagery. During super El Niño conditions in 2015, the dry season from late May to late October lasted about 150 days with low precipitation (=1.0 mm/day). Forest and peat fires became active around mid-August, about 3 months after the dry season’s onset. Severe air pollution (PM10 > 420 × 10−6 g/m3: hazardous level) started mid-September and lasted through late October. After intense peat fires began in late September, the highest daily and hourly PM10 concentrations (3010 and 3760 × 10−6 g/m3, respectively) were observed on October 20, 2015.
