Geography is destiny, as an old saying goes. This and industrial activities landed two Turkish cities more than 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) apart on the list of European cities with the highest air pollution. Iğdır on Turkey's easternmost tip and Düzce in the north, in the Black Sea region, ranked highest among other Turkish cities.

An air quality index released earlier this week by IQAir, a Switzerland-based pollution technology company monitoring the air pollution across the globe, highlights the pollution challenges for all countries that did not fare well when it comes to keeping pollution below acceptable levels. Turkey is ranked 46th in the world in terms of air quality, but Iğdır and Düzce, two relatively small cities compared to Istanbul and other big cities of Turkey, stuck out on the list.

Experts say the geographical locations of the two cities, situated next to and/or surrounded by mountains, aggravate any pollution carried by winds that remains stuck there. With emissions from vehicles and industrial activities, they do not have much chance of getting rid of the pollution in a natural way. Associate professor Fatih Taşpınar, who heads the Department of Environmental Engineering at Düzce University, laments that the city was situated on a plain engulfed by mountains, something that prevents pollutants from scattering.

"There is little room for winds here," he said. The city is known as the home of Topuk, a highland at an altitude of some 1,300 meters (4,625 feet) and a favorite destination as training grounds for football teams. But the fresh air up in the mountains is replaced with a polluted version down in central Düzce, especially in winter.

Taşpınar says winds are their only chance for a significant reduction in pollution, but they are rare and their average speed is very low. "Pollutants hang high above the city, like a lid of a pot," he said. He noted that the prevalent use of coal and increased industrial investments in recent years have added to the pollution.

"It is also located at the intersection of several cities. It is the main route for travel between Istanbul and the capital Ankara and on the main route for travel across the Black Sea region. Hence, the burden of transportation, coal use and similar factors make pollution inevitable," he told Demirören News Agency (DHA) on Thursday. He suggests decreasing the non-natural factors contributing to the pollution, such as a revision of transportation routes and switching to electric vehicle use for mass transit in central Düzce. "We can also move the factories, industrial sites out of the city," he said.

In Iğdır, whose microclimate made it one of the lushest places in otherwise barren, dry eastern Anatolia, air pollution looms large over the population, with 66.2 micrograms of particles per cubic meter. Associate professor Aysun Altıkat from Iğdır University says western winds carry away pollutant particles to Mount Ararat but they do not dissipate and "return" to the air above the residential areas in winter. She said summer's wind erosion, from the east, adds to the pollution. "We have to continue wearing masks," Mehmet Öztürk, a local, says, referring to the lifting of the outdoors mask rule imposed to prevent infections from COVID-19 but now also protects the people of Iğdır from the pollution. "Our population increased, so does the pollution. We have to wear masks," Ümit Eren, a pharmacist in the city, told DHA, adding that more and more people were buying medication for asthma as well as respiratory and lung illnesses nowadays.

"This is not just about fuel consumption (and emissions). Wind erosion poses a risk," Altıkat says, noting that although measures were in place against the phenomenon, which involves transportation of soil by strong winds, they were not sufficient. "We need a bigger budget and to involve other countries too," she told DHA, referring to Iğdır's neighbor Iran. "They should plant trees on the border and make the soil stable," she underlined.

Not a single country managed to meet the World Health Organization's (WHO) air quality standard in 2021, according to IQAir, and smog even rebounded in some regions after a COVID-19-related dip. The WHO recommends that average annual readings of small and hazardous airborne particles known as PM2.5 should be no more than 5 micrograms per cubic meter after changing its guidelines last year, saying that even low concentrations caused significant health risks. But only 3.4% of the surveyed cities met the standard in 2021, according to data compiled by IQAir. As many as 93 cities saw PM2.5 levels at 10 times the recommended level.

"There are a lot of countries that are making big strides in reduction," said Christi Schroeder, an air quality science manager with IQAir. "China started with some very big numbers, and they are continuing to decrease over time. But there are also places in the world where it is getting significantly worse." India's overall pollution levels worsened in 2021, and New Delhi remained the world's most polluted capital, the data showed. Bangladesh was the most polluted country, also unchanged from the previous year, while Chad ranked second after the African country's data was included for the first time.

China, which has been waging war on pollution since 2014, fell to 22nd place in the PM2.5 rankings in 2021, down from 14th a year earlier, with average readings improving slightly over the year to 32.6 micrograms, IQAir said. Hotan in the northwestern region of Xinjiang was China's worst-performing city, with average PM2.5 readings of more than 100 micrograms, largely caused by sandstorms. It fell to third on the list of the world's most polluted cities after being overtaken by Bhiwadi and Ghaziabad, both in India.