Sri Lanka’s air quality improving, ranked as a modest performer

Sri Lanka’s overall environmental performance is improving and the country has been ranked as a modest performer according to a study on global environment released during this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last week.

Sri Lanka has been ranked at the 55th place, six places below the United States which is ranked at 49th, in the 2012 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) prepared by the Yale University in the US.

According to authors of the study, conducted by Yale in association with the World Economic Forum, the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) and Pilot Trend EPI (Trend EPI) rank 132 countries on 22 performance indicators in 10 policy categories and two overarching objectives that reflect facets of Environmental Health and Ecosystem Vitality.  In Environmental Health Sri Lanka ranked at the 71st and at 60th place in Ecosystem Vitality. However, the country fared poor in the indoor air quality (113th) drinking water (80th) and forest cover (108th).

Sri Lanka’s giant neighbour India has the worst air pollution in the entire world, the study concluded. Overall India ranked at the 125th place out of the 132 countries studied.

Elsewhere in the region, the Himalayan nation Nepal fared better than Sri Lanka at the 38th place while Bangladesh at 115th and Pakistan at 120th were poor performers.

Switzerland was at the top of the list with the best environment.