The President of UCF, Eng. Ahmad Kamareddine opened the workshop by presenting a brief on the AL Fayhaa experience extending over two decades in controlling and managing Air Quality. The representative of the ministry of environment presented the Air Quality monitoring network in Lebanon, highlighted the geographic locations of the stations, the type  of pollutants monitored and how the results will be displayed on screens to inform the Lebanese citizens about the air quality around them. AL Fayhaa presented quantitative results of the monitoring data in the three cities for the years 2016 and 2017.

Air Quality monitoring process in the Urban Community Al Fayhaa (UCF), a member of MedCities, started in year 2000 by installing the Tripoli Environment and Development Observatory ( TEDO) which hosted the first Air Quality Laboratory in Lebanon. The project was realized through the European commission Life Program DG11 and included many partners mainly MedCities. The importance of this laboratory lies in the fact that it controls, measures and analyses the collected data by its own means. AL Fayhaa embarked later on the Air Quality monitoring path, through many EU financed projects. The SMAP project identified the main sources of air pollutants and detected the areas of action through a long term action plan. The ENPI CBC MED  project of Gouv’air’nance installed in the cities of AL Fayhaa, three fully equipped air quality measurement stations with a weather monitoring station in order to monitor continuously the air quality and enhance Air governance.

These stations will be integrated into the national air quality control network of the Ministry of Environment.