Two cities in Belgium were included in the top 50 of cleanest cities in Europe based on air quality based on the newest data from the European Environment Agency (EEA).
Many Belgian cities, particularly in Flanders, still perform badly when it comes to fine dust pollution (PM 2.5), which contributes to most of the air pollution deaths in the country, EEA data showed.
The Walloon cities of Liège (ranked 42nd) and Namur (46th place) were the only two Belgian cities to appear in the top 50 of cities with the cleanest air, of which the top performers based on the fine particular matter per μg/m3 were Umeå in Sweden, and Faro and Funchal in Portugal.
The next Belgian city only appears in 71st place, while Belgium's capital city Brussels is in place 158. The three Flemish cities included in the research ranked even lower, with Bruges in 172nd place, Ghent in 217th and Antwerp in 220th.
How good or bad is the air quality?
In all of the Belgian cities where air pollution was measured, particulate matter pollution is higher than the 10 μg/m³ World Health Organisation’s (WHO) health-based guideline for long-term exposure. However, of the 344 European cities included in the research between 2020 and 2021, just 11 cities had good air quality based on the to this matter.
The WHO recently lowered almost all the reference thresholds for key air pollutants that are harmful to health, after scientific evidence showed that even reduced concentrations of air pollution affect different aspects of health more than previously understood.
The European Union’s (EU) annual limit value for PM2.5, which at 25 µg/m3 is much higher, was only exceeded in the three most polluted cities, including Nowy Sacz, Poland (the largest emitter of particulate matter in Europe) and Cremona and Padova in Italy.
However, at these levels, the level of pollution is considered dangerous to a person's health. The most common causes of deaths linked to air pollution in Belgium are heart diseases and stroke, followed by lung disease and lung cancer.
Although pollution by particulate matter continues to be an issue in Belgium, emissions have been greatly reduced in recent years (by 45% between 1990 and 2020), as was confirmed in Flanders last year, mainly due to a decrease in pollution emitted by traffic due to stricter rules for vehicles.
