The haze problem in Northern Thailand and policies to combat it: A review

Abstract

© 2019 Elsevier Ltd The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that a third of all global deaths from stroke, lung cancer and respiratory diseases can be linked to air pollution. In some cities, breathing polluted air is as dangerous as smoking 25 cigarettes a day. This is a literature review that focusses on the problem of the annual haze in Northern Thailand, in order to ascertain workable policies to help alleviate this annual smog or haze. The review was conducted from over 1000 peer reviewed papers from both Scopus and the ISI databases with preference given to papers published within the past 5 years. This paper is divided into five sections. The first section deals with the cause of the haze, the technologies and models that are being developed and used to monitor and predict pollution and the meteorological conditions specific to the North of Thailand. The second section concerns the effect from air pollution on the health of the general public both from Thailand and other countries. The third section looks at policies from around the world that have been used to successfully reduce haze and smog. These include conservation agriculture, low emission zones and education methods. The fourth section suggests policies that should be implemented in the North of Thailand to help alleviate this annual problem. The overall conclusion is that the annual pollution is a complex multi-faceted problem requiring coherent policies across multiple departments, provinces and countries.