During the past two decades, the city of Dubai has witnessed a remarkable transformation, as it has succeeded in expanding its economy from fishing, pearl diving and gold trading to become one of the world's leading cities in the fields of tourism, shipping and other sectors of the economy such as industry and medical field. This is followed by the emergence of various environmental challenges, such as maintaining the quality of the air environment.
Consequently, Dubai Municipality has developed an integrated network of monitoring stations equipped to record criteria pollutants such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, ozone and suspended particles. This is in addition to monitoring the concentrations of odorous compounds and weather data such as wind speed and direction, temperature and humidity, In order to comprehensively support the evaluation and technical analysis in the different areas in Dubai. Air quality monitoring stations have been installed in a number of strategic locations in the Emirate, which were based on the outcomes of specialized surveys and digital modelling, and their locations vary between residential, commercial and industrial areas, nature reserves, and other locations such as parks and roads. In 2019, the department's efforts in air environment field were awarded with the "Green Apple" Environmental Award in the category of best environmental practices.