Do you know which are the most polluted cities in the US in 2017?
If you are deciding where to live, besides the beauty of the place and wide opportunities, do you also consider the quality of air? Air pollution seems to be among the top environmental issues. It affects not only health of the citizens, but the planet as well.
One of the most air polluted city in the world is considered to be Zabol in Iran. This city basically looks like a cloud of dust, which is considered to be a meteorological phenomenon. Zabol has a problem with dust storms which are filled with particles that can damage human lungs in a matter of hours. When it comes to other top polluted cities in the world, the list is long, and some of them are Onitsha in Nigeria, where petrol stations, rubbish dumps, and fuels spills are on every step, as well as a number of cities in India, Saudi Arabia, and China.
If we look at the pollution in the United States in 2016, we can see that more than one in two people had unhealthy air quality in their communities, according to the report of American Lung Association for that precise year. Moreover, if we think on the level of states, many suggestions show that California is the most in harm. So, we wondered why is California so polluted? One of the opinions suggests that its geographical position is the main reason. The Central Valley in California is surrounded on three sides by mountain ranges, so it acts as a pool of pollutants produced by the region’s residents, its industry, and its large agricultural community. In addition, it is also a growing population center.
In order to see if the most polluted cities in the US are based in California, we did our research. First, we took suggestions from the American Lung Association that analyzed every city in the US by pollution made due to daily ozone presence, year-round particle pollution and by short-term particle pollution. We took 25 cities that are most polluted by the presence of ozone as it’s the most harmful to humans. Then, we checked carbon dioxide emissions data on the U.S. Energy Information Administration website, for each state of those mentioned cities. We wanted to determine the most polluted states in the US when it comes to the carbon dioxide emissions. As for the final ranking — first, we lined up the states according to the carbon dioxide emissions data and then we grouped the cities mentioned above according to the state they belong. Finally, we ranked cities according to the ozone rate within each state. This way we combined the pollution data for both carbon dioxide emissions and ozone presence. Moreover, as some people connect pollution with the dirtiness of cities, we recommend you to read about the 16 Dirtiest Cities in America to see if there are any correlations.
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