The first case of COVID-19 in Iran was reported on 19 February 2020, 1 month before the Nowruz holidays coincided with the global pandemic, leading to quarantine and lockdown. Many studies have shown that environmental pollutants were drastically reduced with the spread of this disease and the decline in industrial activities. Among these pollutants, nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and carbon monoxide (CO) are widely caused by anthropogenic and industrial activities. In this study, the changes in these pollutants in Iran and its four metropolises (i.e., Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, and Tabriz) in three periods from 11 March to 8 April 2019, 2020, and 2021 were investigated. To this end, timeseries of the Sentinel-5P TROPOMI and in situ data within the Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud-based platform were employed. It was observed that the results of the NO2 derived from Sentinel-5P were in agreement with the in situ data acquired from ground-based stations (average correlation coefficient = 0.7). Moreover, the results showed that the concentration of NO2 and CO pollutants in 2020 (the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic) was 5% lower than in 2019, indicating the observance of quarantine rules, as well as people’s initial fear of the coronavirus. Contrarily, these pollutants in 2021 (the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic) were higher than those in 2020 by 5%, which could have been due to high vehicle traffic and a lack of serious policy- and law-making by the government to ban urban and interurban traffic. These findings are essential criteria that might be used to guide future manufacturing logistics, traffic planning and management, and environmental sustainability policies and plans. Furthermore, using the COVID-19 scenario and free satellite-derived data, it is now possible to investigate how harmful gas emissions influence air quality. These findings may also be helpful in making future strategic decisions on how to cope with the virus spread and lessen its negative social and economic consequences.
Abstract. Water storage in regions with the weather hot and arid or semi-arid such as Iran have many uses. Including these water storage, can be referred to groundwater. Groundwater is one of the sources of sweet waters in the world, and one of the factors is economical and social development. Hence, monitoring its changes in water resources management is of great importance. On the other hand, precipitation is one of the factors directly affecting the water storage level and groundwater level changes. In this study, water storage changes with GRACE satellite data and total annual precipitation with CHIRPS data in the Google Earth Engine system investigated for Iran during 2003–2017. The results obtained from the GRACE satellite data indicate over 10 cm reducing of the water storage levels in Iran during the period between 2008 to 2017. Also, the chart obtained from the CHIRPS data for the total annual precipitation shows that the amount of rainfall since 2008 has decreased in this region.
The first cases of Covid-19 in Iran were reported shortly after the disease outbreak in Wuhan, China. The end of the Persian year and the beginning of the Nowruz holidays in the following year (March 2020) coincided with its global pandemic, which led to quarantine and lockdown in the country. Many studies have shown that with the spread of this disease and the decline of industrial activities, environmental pollutants were drastically reduced. Among these pollutants, Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) and Carbon Monoxide (CO) are widely caused by anthropogenic and industrial activities. In this study, the changes of these pollutants in Iran and its four metropolises (i.e., Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, and Tabriz) in three time periods from March 11 to April 8 of 2019, 2020, and 2021 were investigated. To this end, time-series of the Sentinel-5P TROPOMI and in-situ data within the Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud-based platform were employed. It was observed that the results obtained from the satellite data were in agreement with the in-situ data (average correlation coefficient = 0.7). Moreover, the results showed that the concentration of NO2 and CO pollutants in 2020 (the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic) was 5% lower than in 2019, indicating the observance of quarantine rules as well as people’s initial fear of the Coronavirus. Contrarily, these pollutants in 2021 (the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic) were higher than those in 2020 by 5%, which could be due to high vehicle traffic and the lack of serious policy and law-making by the government to ban urban and interurban traffic. Furthermore, the increase of the NO2 and CO in 2021 was followed by an increase in the deaths caused by Covid-19 and triggering the fourth peak in the Covid-19 cases, signifying a link between exposure to air pollution and Covid-19 mortality in Iran.
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