prijava
SARAJEVO, October 6 (FENA) - In order to help Bosnia and Herzegovina in the fight against air pollution, and to improve the air quality assessment and management system in accordance with EU standards, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA), with the financial support of the Swedish Embassy, since 2019 has been implementing the three-year project "Improvement of air quality and air quality management in BiH - IMPAQ".
This year, a beta version of the latest generation of data management and air quality reporting systems was installed in BiH. The system includes, among other things, a central database for measuring air quality and a function for reporting data to the European Environment Agency (EEA).
"At the end of September, Bosnia and Herzegovina using the new Ravena version, prepared an annual report for the EEA for the past year. The difference compared to the previous version is that it can be used as a database, and data visualizations have been improved, and some other operations used in data management have been facilitated," said Enis Omerčić, senior expert associate in the Environmental Sector of the FBiH Hydrometeorological Institute.
Following this round of reporting, BiH will provide feedback to the Norwegian Air Research Institute (NILU) and the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) on how the system can be further developed to meet the country's needs.
The new phase of system upgrades will be in late 2020 and early 2021, so a more advanced version can be installed ahead of the next reporting round in 2021.
"Bosnia and Herzegovina is a potential candidate for membership in the European Union, and improving cooperation and reporting to the EEA is certainly a step forward in the EU accession process," said the Head of the Department of Environmental Protection of the RS Hydrometeorological Institute Ranka Radić.
With a total budget of 3.8m euros, the IMPAQ project, funded by the Swedish Embassy, aims to prepare BiH for EU accession, improve overall air quality capabilities and provide health benefits to the country, the SEPA stated.
(FENA) S. R.
