Analysis of Approaches to Determining the Atmosphere Pollution Level of Settlements

The aim of the work is to analyze the methodology for calculating indices are used both in the Russian Federation and in a number of foreign countries, that allow us to draw a conclusion about the level of atmospheric pollution. The article considers approaches to the calculation of such indices as IZA, KIZA (Russia), AQI (USA, Australia), DAQI (Great Britain), CAQI, YACAQI (European Union), AQHI (Canada, Hong Kong), PSI (Singapore). The main calculation formulas of the indices, the parameters on the basis of which they are calculated and how the results can be interpreted are described. The conclusion about the applicability of these methods on the territory of Russia is made. The calculation part was made on the basis of data on the concentrations of pollutants obtained at automatic atmospheric air monitoring stations in Irkutsk for 2019. In addition, the absolute and relative frequency of occurrence of various index values was calculated. It was found that despite the apparent similarity of the results, the analysis should be carried out at the level of sub-indices or pollution indices for each individual substance. In addition, the calculation of the absolute and relative frequencies of the occurrence of indices corresponding to different levels of pollution showed that averaging the results hides the occurrence of dangerous levels of pollution that may be critical for sensitive population groups (people with chronic diseases, children, the elderly).