Phung Chi Sy, deputy head of the Institute of Tropical Technology and Environmental Protection, compared environment monitoring with gatekeeping, which needs to be done regularly.

Ineffective environment monitoring is due to an outdated semi-automatic monitoring system which does not truly reflect the real situation.

Under the system, workers have to go to the sites to get samples to analyze at laboratories. Therefore, it is difficult to have regular assessments about the water and air situation.

Nguyen Van Phuoc from the HCM City National University also noted that the monitoring system does not include any warning system.

The problem is, according to the HCM City Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, all the automatic monitoring stations in HCM City have been out of order since 2012, which makes it impossible to obtain accurate figures about pollution.

Since 2012, semi-automatic monitoring has been carried out in 16 places in the city instead of the stations. However, there are many existing problems with semi-monitoring.

The method only allows monitoring of the air from 8 am to 9 am and from 3 pm to 4 pm every day. Meanwhile, the monitoring cannot be conducted in rush hours, when trucks roll on HCM City’s roads.

Therefore, the department has asked the city’s authorities to approve the plan on installation of 27 automatic monitoring stations and 225 semi-automatic stations, worth VND495 billion in 2016-2020.

An expert, agreeing that it is necessary to upgrade the system, warned that if monitoring equipment cannot be protected well, the machines would exist for several years only.

In the past, HCM City had nine automatic air monitoring stations funded by the Norwegian and Danish Governments in 2003. But the stations stopped after several years of operation.

Le Huy Ba from the HCM City Industry University pointed out that the stations worth millions of dollars have a short life span because of bad maintenance.

In related news, the Prime Minister has approved the 2016-2025 plan on developing the national natural resource and environment network. In the 2016-2020 period, Vietnam would upgrade 671 existing monitoring systems and build 364 new stations.

Ineffective environment monitoring is due to an outdated semi-automatic monitoring system which does not truly reflect the real situation.