The National Institute of Environmental Research said Sunday it will hold a forum on the smart monitoring system at 10 a.m. on the 28th at the National Assembly Members’ Office Building in Yeongdeungpo District, Seoul, together with the offices of lawmakers Park Hong-bae and Woo Jae-joon of the National Assembly’s Climate, Energy, Environment and Labor Committee.
South Korea’s current air pollution control system centers on measuring pollutants released from facility smokestacks. But as industrial operations have grown more complex and chemical and manufacturing sectors have diversified, more cases have been reported of hazardous substances — including volatile organic compounds, or VOCs — escaping from various points across production facilities, exposing limits in the existing approach.
In industrial complexes where multiple plants are clustered, officials and experts have also repeatedly pointed to the difficulty of identifying specific sources through inspections of individual sites alone. That has fueled calls for a monitoring system that can manage emissions across an entire industrial complex, beyond a single facility.
To address the gap, the institute has operated a monitoring system since 2019 that uses mobile measurement vehicles and spectroscopic remote-sensing technology to track air pollutant emissions in real time. The system is seen as allowing faster checks across wider areas than fixed monitoring methods.
At the forum, Kang Dae-il, head of the institute’s Air Engineering Research Division, and Inha University professor Jeon Gi-jun are to present on current operations of the smart monitoring system and on domestic and international technology and policy trends.
A panel discussion moderated by Song Ji-hyeon, president of the Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment, will bring together representatives from academia, the government and the National Assembly to discuss expanding the use of advanced monitoring equipment, ensuring the reliability of measurement data and directions for regulatory improvements.
The institute said it expects the discussions to accelerate efforts to build the legal and institutional foundation needed to broaden the use of advanced monitoring equipment.
“Smart monitoring is an important tool to more accurately understand actual emissions of air pollutants and strengthen on-site response,” NIER President Park Yeon-jae said. “We will actively support the stable establishment of related systems and policies based on scientific evidence and field experience.”
* This article has been translated by AI.
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