Gyeonggi Province Fine Dust Reduction Excellence Evaluation: Suwon Selected as Excellent Institution

[Suwon Ilbo=Park No-hoon Reporter] Gyeonggi Province conducted a ‘2021 Gyeonggi Province Fine Dust Reduction Excellence Evaluation of Cities and Counties’ and selected Seongnam, Siheung, and Anseong as top-performing institutions.

Suwon was selected as an excellent institution.

This evaluation was conducted by the province's Fine Dust Countermeasures Division and practical evaluation task force, dividing cities and counties into three groups based on population: Group A (510,000 or more), Group B (210,000-500,000), and Group C (200,000 or less), assessing 18 indicators across 4 fields including the seasonal management system, combining 60% practical evaluation conducted by task force members and 40% expert evaluation conducted by external specialists on exemplary cases.

Top-performing institutions by group were selected as Seongnam, Siheung, and Anseong; excellent institutions as Suwon, Osan, and Guri; and encouragement institutions as Pyeongtaek, Yangju, and Uiwang.

In Group A, many cities and counties were actively promoting the seasonal management system, the most important fine dust countermeasure, as a priority management project. In particular, Seongnam's operation of a private-public-industry joint consultative body and remicon plant restructuring project, Suwon's ultrafine dust management officer operation, and Hwaseong's dense air quality monitoring operations were selected as exemplary cases.

In Group B, Gimpo's strengthened stone quarry management standards, Hanam's drone surveillance of dust-generating worksites and Internet of Things (IoT) technology-based surveillance system construction project, Siheung's intelligent indoor air quality improvement technology demonstration project, and Osan's smart fine dust unmanned vending machine operation were evaluated as exemplary cases.

For Group C, Uiwang's smart management of logistics bases, rural cities' crackdowns on illegal burning and agricultural byproduct crushing projects, Guri's fine dust barrier dust prevention net installation project, and Anseong's fine dust satisfaction survey were evaluated as exemplary cases suited to local circumstances.

The province explained that by reducing the proportion of practical evaluation and raising the proportion of expert evaluation compared to last year, cities and counties that diligently pursued all fields were selected as final excellent institutions.

Park Dae-geun, Director of the Gyeonggi Province Fine Dust Countermeasures Division, stated, “This evaluation was established to enable the province and municipalities to organically pursue fine dust reduction policies and to spread good practices,” and added, “Since fine dust cannot be resolved through the efforts of a single local government alone, we will strengthen sharing and cooperation between the province and municipalities.”