No air to breathe: in 9 of the last 10 years in Oskemen the air pollution level has been “high”
In the largest city in eastern Kazakhstan – Oskemen – the number of industrial giants is disproportionately large relative to the population. The presence of large enterprises and the geographic location determine the consistently poor air quality. In 9 out of the last 10 years the city has had a “high” level of ambient air pollution, only in 2016 it was assessed as “elevated”. Over the past two years the exceedance of the maximum allowable concentrations of harmful substances in the air of Oskemen has been recorded 14.7 thousand times.
Oskemen is located in the basins of the Altai mountain system. The climate is sharply continental with unstable humidification.
The city has approximately 350 000 residents. At the same time, for such a population there are a number of industrial giants — the metallurgical site of Kazzinc (lead, zinc, copper, sulphuric-acid plants, as well as a precious-metals plant), Ulba Metallurgical Plant (production of fuel for NPPs, uranium, beryllium and other rare-earth metals and their compounds); Oskemen Titanium‑Magnesium Plant (full-cycle titanium production), the largest auto-assembly factory in Kazakhstan Asia Auto, which annually produces 10-30 thousand passenger cars and SUVs. In addition, the city hosts thermal and hydro power plants.
Like Almaty, Oskemen is characterised by poor ventilation of urban air. The huge number of industrial sources together with a large number of vehicles (more than 100 000 registered cars) and low air exchange lead to persistent atmospheric pollution.
Air quality monitoring in the city of Oskemen is carried out at 10 automatic monitoring stations, where data are recorded every 20 minutes across 22 parameters: 1) suspended particles PM-2.5, 2) suspended particles PM-10, 3) nitrogen dioxide, 4) sulphur dioxide, 5) nitrogen oxide, 6) carbon monoxide, 7) hydrogen sulphide, 8) ground-level ozone, 9) ammonia, 10) sulphuric acid, 11) phenol, 12) formaldehyde, 13) hydrogen fluoride, 14) chlorine, 15) hydrogen chloride, 16) benzoapyrene, 17) gamma-radiation equivalent dose rate (gamma-background), 18) cadmium, 19) copper, 20) lead, 21) beryllium, 22) zinc.
Two indices are used to assess air quality:
- Atmospheric Pollution Index (API) – an indicator that accounts for the concentrations of several key pollutants and their impact on human health. It uses average daily or annual concentrations to determine the level of chronic air pollution;
- Standard Index (SI) – an indicator calculated by dividing the highest single measured concentration of a pollutant by its maximum permissible concentration. It helps identify the most significant pollutant at a specific station or city and is used to assess short-term air contamination.
According to data from Kazhydromet, in Oskemen the API in 2015, 2017-2022, 2024 was assessed as “high” (API 7.0-9.0), in 2016 — as “elevated” (API 5.6). In 2023 the air pollution level was assessed by SI as “high”.
At the same time in 2023 the monitoring posts recorded 8,520 cases of exceedance of the maximum allowable concentration of harmful substances, in 2024 – 6,181 cases. A large share of pollutants falls on sulphur and nitrogen dioxides, carbon and nitrogen oxides, hydrogen sulphide, hydrogen fluoride, chlorine and hydrogen chloride.
As previously reported, the Regional Ecological Summit is scheduled to be held in Astana from April 22 to 24, 2026, where the environmental challenges of the Central Asian countries and possible solutions will be discussed.
