Air quality, marine life priorities for EAD

The Environment Agency Abu Dhabi (EAD) will focus on three issues set as priorities — monitoring the air quality, marine water and assessing the health of Abu Dhabi's biodiversity, announced an official on Tuesday during a celebration to commemorate 15 years since the establishment of the agency. "We must build on the success of our air quality monitoring programme by expanding it throughout Abu Dhabi, linking it with other emirates and making the data accessible online. This programme will help us better understand the relationship between air quality and health, as well as better plan and manage future emissions," said Razan Al Mubarak, EAD secretary-general. "We will also build on our marine water quality monitoring programme and create effective regulation and enforcement measures that will help safeguard the integrity of our coast. We will also measure the terrestrial biodiversity of the emirate to guide conservation practice," she added. Deep knowledge Al Mubarak explained that the agency will act on fast-developing issues such as nuclear energy regulation and control, climate change mitigation and other environmental issues. "Throughout the 15 years the agency has gained a deep knowledge of local fisheries, helped bring the Arabian oryx back from the brink of extinction, preserved the world's densest dugong population, increased the public's awareness of environmental issues and incubated several programmes," Al Mubarak said.