The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) is on high alert to adopt measures to stem air pollution as the level of PM2.5 fine dust in the capital is rising at an alarming pace.
BMA spokesman Ekwaranyu Amrapan said the Bangkok Air Quality Centre showed the daily average level had risen to 41 microgrammes per cubic metre as of Wednesday morning.
This makes Bangkok the 11th most polluted city in the nation by this metric, according to the IQAir ranking.
Mr Ekwaranyu said the BMA and various agencies have formulated a dust control plan to mitigate the unhealthy smog in higher-risk areas of Bangkok next year.
"Bangkok faces problems from unsafe air quality every winter, which affects people's health, especially minors and the elderly," he said.
"So based on the joint efforts of many agencies, including the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the National Research Council of Thailand and the Thailand Health Organization on the latest dust control plan, we will solve the problem of PM2.5 pollution at its root."
He said the strategies include activating "dust detectives" to study the causes of the pollution, a PM 2.5 tracking system, better traffic management and education activities, such as a "dust fighter classroom" project in every school, which is set to start on Oct 28.
The BMA also plans to develop a real-time dust-forecasting system by linking the pollution data with the BMA Traffic application, to maximise the BMA's haze-forecasting ability.
The level of fine dust in Bangkok ranked 42nd in the nation in a 2021 report.
