This office is part of the Head Office of the National Environmental Research and Training Center (CENICA) and is responsible for the operation of the National Atmospheric Monitoring Program (PNMA) whose objective is to evaluate air quality at the national level and provide a reliable diagnostic of contamination levels, and monitor air quality in the country’s principal urban zones.

The basic objective of the PNMA is to generate authentic, valid and comparable information from the country’s different sites and networks, as a key instrument to help develop environmental policies to protect local peoples’ health and their environments. This is achieved through the establishment and coordination of programs to evaluate innovative technologies that are aimed at reducing atmospheric emissions from both mobile and fixed sources, in addition to providing technical specifications, design bases, operating protocols, and data management for atmospheric monitoring systems.

It is the Office’s responsibility to promote and supervise the establishment of atmospheric contamination monitoring systems in federal entities, as well as evaluate the operation of atmospheric monitoring systems in order to help guarantee the quality of the information. This is done through the application of analytical methods and quality control procedures as part of environmental contaminant measuring and characterization processes.