How is the air pollution in Kunming? Any seasons of really bad air? Any statistics would be welcome, or just your own opinion.

www.gokunming.com/[...]

Vehicles like trucks or buses often emit thick black exhaust smoke, although the air in general looks a lot better than in large cities

Lets be honest here, the air compared to most other big cities in Kunming is fabulous. There are times when it isn't (it appears pollution is pushed in from somewhere else or dust is kicked up from construction), but mostly its excellent, particularly just out of the centre of the city. In the city centre, its pretty darn good for a city of around (not exactly sure about this!) 6-8 million.

In saying that, I have heard that it is definitely getting worse. Hopefully lots of the tree planting/beautification on-going will improve it!

To piggyback on Austinmike's question how about the water? Obviously no one drinks tap water...but how about showering, etc?

Water? Showers? No way! Nobody in Kunming takes showers or brushes their teeth. If you got to ask, better you stay out of China, out of Yunnan and please don't come to Kunming smelling clean!

@blobbles, actually the air in Kunming has gotten much worse. In a previous forum on air quality their is a link to chinas air quality reading and kunmings pm2.5 is usually very bad early in morning and gets better when the winds clear the air later in the morning. I live on the top of a hill overlooking Kunming and there have been days i cannot see the buildings of city center. Being the pm2.5 readings spike during and after morning rush hour have to believe increased motor traffic is cause of much of problem. Also in some areas heavy construction and trucks raising dust contribute. When we had several days of little or no wind back in January we had several days the air quality was rated in the unhealthy range. That of course was by china standards by world standards the air was considered very unhealthy. But many of those days our air was still much better than Chengdu or most northern cities which burn a lot of coal for heat.

From what I have observed.

Air quality.
Varies depending on location and time of day.

Near highways and city centre at rush hour is not so good. Not only for vehicle emmisions, but vehicles also kick up dust.
Some areas of the city have a lot of heavy vehicles, and as stated, these often have very dirty exhaust fumes.

The south of the city gets its air refreshed by a prevailing southerly breeze, this comes across the open lake. However, the city has mountains on the N, E, and W. This traps the air and seems to concentrate pollutants in the north. Especially noticable on still summer days.

Water quality
This seems to vary from location to location. The water in our area can contain a lot of chlorine, sometimes. It is not really fit for drinking, but seems ok to brush your teeth and wash with. However, the water can contain particulate mater.
You can use the tap water for cooking, and making drinks, but you can taste it. We use bottled water for this purpose.

Noise and light pollution are not even on the radar here. Real problems in some areas but nobody is acting on either.

Good that water quality is mentioned. Do people usually pay an external private company for water? I usually pay electricity to another company, but water to my community's management office. I also once went to the 3rd underground floor of one of the buildings and there's a large room containing machines at work with a lot of pipes. I was thinking that it might be the management that uses that place to recycle used water instead of a professional water treatment company. They already water plants with smelly used water.

Plants are often watered with water of lower quality. On this the locals are sensible.
There are only a few cities in China where the tap water is said to be pottable (fit for drinking).

We pay our bill via our management office, but the bill comes from a water company. The way the utilities work in China can be a bit convoluted. It makes sense though, it saves me a journey and saves the water company from having to open offices all over the city.

In one city we paid the gas bill via the management. But gas was rationed, if we went over our quota, we had to go to the gas company (in some god forsaken quater of the city) to buy an extra ration, which was limited.

Thanks for the information. Thought I had read somewhere about fracking in Yunnan. Which immediately raised my concern. Now being here and noticing some odd things from showering... eyes burning, abnormal skin reaction, thought it worth asking.