Читайте этот материал на русском. Kazakhstan’s “invisible crisis” of polluted air is not limited to Almaty and Astana, its largest cities.Evidence shows that in more industrial cities such as Oskemen and Pavlodar, where the churn of coal-fired power, heavy industry, and oil refineries choke out the population, air quality indicators are much worse.To get a sense of the importance of knowing — and correctly monitoring — the sources of air pollution in Kazakhstan, we spoke to Nassiba Baimatova, professor of chemistry and head of the Environmental Analytical Chemistry Laboratory at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University in Almaty.Baimatova has spent nearly two decades studying the causes and costs of air pollution across the country, and has co-written numerous academic articles on the subject.Some of your latest research focuses on volatile organic compounds (VOCs), a group of toxic pollutants that Kazakhstan does not currently monitor at all.Why are these important to analyze? Many people tend to highlight the risk of PM2.5 [a form of inhalable particulate matter common in Kazakhstan — V], but VOCs may have equal or higher toxicity.It’s also important to remember that the term VOCs itself combines several pollutants with individual carcinogenic risks — the World Health Organization lists at least eight different kinds that should be monitored — but we don’t monitor any of them at an official level.VOCs are technically difficult to measure because, as evident from their name, they’re very volatile.They can be found in car smog, coal combustion, paints and solvents.They tend to be found in higher concentrations indoors, but in the worst parts of the country, where coal-heating is prevalent, even the ambient air outside will typically have high levels of VOCs.The problem is that we have ways of measuring PM2.5, but have no national system of systematically tracking VOCs as of yet.How, then, do you track PM2.5?