September 11, 2023

Tucson Air Quality Among the Best In the West

Tied for 4th among 12 Western Cities

TucsonSkyline3 VIEW LARGER The view of the Tucson Skyline from A Mountain. Oct. 23, 2019.
Meredith O'Neil/AZPM

New data shows air quality in Tucson is among the cleanest in major western cities.

The data was compiled by Making Action Possible for Southern Arizona or MAP — a project headed up by the University of Arizona

It shows that in 2022, Tucson’s air quality was rated “good” close to 52 percent of the time and that the city had moderate to good air quality more than 96 percent of the time.

The data also shows the increase in good air quality days in Tucson was nearly a 40 percent increase from 20-21 - likely due to the absence of major wildfire activity and summer dust storms.

Tucson tied with Albuquerque for fourth place among 12 western cities - coming in closely behind top 3 Colorado Springs, Austin, Texas and Portland Oregon.

Phoenix ranked last among the western cities with less than 19 percent good air quality days in 2022

The Air Quality Index or AQI has six rankings: from good to hazardous.

By posting comments, you agree to our
AZPM encourages comments, but comments that contain profanity, unrelated information, threats, libel, defamatory statements, obscenities, pornography or that violate the law are not allowed. Comments that promote commercial products or services are not allowed. Comments in violation of this policy will be removed. Continued posting of comments that violate this policy will result in the commenter being banned from the site.

By submitting your comments, you hereby give AZPM the right to post your comments and potentially use them in any other form of media operated by this institution.
AZPM is a service of the University of Arizona and our broadcast stations are licensed to the Arizona Board of Regents who hold the trademarks for Arizona Public Media and AZPM. We respectfully acknowledge the University of Arizona is on the land and territories of Indigenous peoples.
The University of Arizona