COVID-19 and Air Pollution: Measuring Pandemic Impact to Air Quality in Five European Countries

Skirienė, Akvilė Feiferytė; Stasiškienė, Žaneta

doi:10.3390/atmos12030290

Cited by 61 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…The effect of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic on the air quality of several cities of Spain confirmed these findings [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Similar positive impacts on air quality have been reported around several European cities [11,[16][17][18][19].…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 74%

Evolution of Gaseous and Particulate Pollutants in the Air: What Changed after Five Lockdown Weeks at a Southwest Atlantic European Region (Northwest of Spain) Due to the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic?

et al. 2021

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Due to the exponential growth of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Spain (2020), the Spanish Government adopted lockdown measures as mitigating strategies to reduce the spread of the pandemic from 14 March. In this paper, we report the results of the change in air quality at two Atlantic Coastal European cities (Northwest Spain) during five lockdown weeks. The temporal evolution of gaseous (nitrogen oxides, comprising NOx, NO, and NO2; sulfur dioxide, SO2; carbon monoxide, CO; and ozone, O3) and particulate matter (PM10; PM2.5; and equivalent black carbon, eBC) pollutants were recorded before (7 February to 13 March 2020) and during the first five lockdown weeks (14 March to 20 April 2020) at seven air quality monitoring stations (urban background, traffic, and industrial) in the cities of A Coruña and Vigo. The influences of the backward trajectories and meteorological parameters on air pollutant concentrations were considered during the studied period. The temporal trends indicate that the concentrations of almost all species steadily decreased during the lockdown period with statistical significance, with respect to the pre-lockdown period. In this context, great reductions were observed for pollutants related mainly to fossil fuel combustion, road traffic, and shipping emissions (−38 to −78% for NO, −22 to −69% for NO2, −26 to −75% for NOx, −3 to −77% for SO2, −21% for CO, −25 to −49% for PM10, −10 to −38% for PM2.5, and −29 to −51% for eBC). Conversely, O3 concentrations increased from +5 to +16%. Finally, pollutant concentration data for 14 March to 20 April of 2020 were compared with those of the previous two years. The results show that the overall air pollutants levels were higher during 2018–2019 than during the lockdown period.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 74%

Evolution of Gaseous and Particulate Pollutants in the Air: What Changed after Five Lockdown Weeks at a Southwest Atlantic European Region (Northwest of Spain) Due to the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic?

et al. 2021

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“…The changes in concentrations between the two study periods are also due to the global lockdown situation caused by the coronavirus pandemic restrictions. In the literature, one can find results indicating that air pollution has decreased significantly in this period in comparison to the values previously reported [52,53]. The impact of the pandemic on air pollution in terms of biological monitoring has so far been described by only one known publication, where is indicated that concentrations of selected metals accumulated by the moss Pleurozium schreberi, as part of passive biomonitoring studies, decreased by lockdown [54].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 70%

Air Quality during New Year’s Eve: A Biomonitoring Study with Moss

2021

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Mosses are one of the best bioindicators in the assessment of atmospheric aerosol pollution by heavy metals. Studies using mosses allow both short- and long-term air quality monitoring. The increasing contamination of the environment (including air) is causing a search for new, cheap and effective methods of monitoring its condition. Once such method is the use of mosses in active biomonitoring. The aim of the study was to assess the atmospheric aerosol pollution with selected heavy metals (Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd, Hg and Pb) from the smoke of fireworks used during New Year’s Eve in the years 2019/2020 and 2020/2021. In studies a biomonitoring moss-bag method with moss Pleurozium schreberi (Willd. ex Brid.) Mitt. genus Pleurozium was used. The research was conducted in the town Prószków (5 km in south direction from Opole, opolskie voivodship, Poland). The moss was exposed 14 days before 31 December (from 17 to 30 of December), on New Year’s Eve (31 December and 1 January) and 2 weeks after the New Year (from 2–15 January). Higher concentrations of analysed elements were determined in samples exposed during New Year’s Eve. Increases in concentrations were demonstrated by analysis of the Relative Accumulation Factor (RAF). The results indicate that the use of fireworks during New Year’s Eve causes an increase in air pollution with heavy metals. In addition, it was shown that the COVID-19 induced restrictions during New Year’s Eve 2020 resulted in a reduction of heavy metal content in moss samples and thus in lower atmospheric aerosol pollution with these analytes. The study confirmed moss usefulness in monitoring of atmospheric aerosol pollution from point sources.

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“…Our paper also contributes to the general literature on the determinants and consequences of social distancing policy [8][9][10][11][12][13]. Finally, our paper complements contemporaneous work on the coronavirus' effect on outdoor air pollution in North America [14][15][16], Europe [17,18], and Asia [19][20][21][22], and indoor air pollution [23]. Relative to these other papers, our contribution is two-fold.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 69%

Expected Health Effects of Reduced Air Pollution from COVID-19 Social Distancing

et al. 2021

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The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in stay-at-home policies and other social distancing behaviors in the United States in spring of 2020. This paper examines the impact that these actions had on emissions and expected health effects through reduced personal vehicle travel and electricity consumption. Using daily cell phone mobility data for each U.S. county, we find that vehicle travel dropped about 40% by mid-April across the nation. States that imposed stay-at-home policies before March 28 decreased travel slightly more than other states, but travel in all states decreased significantly. Using data on hourly electricity consumption by electricity region (e.g., balancing authority), we find that electricity consumption fell about 6% on average by mid-April with substantial heterogeneity. Given these decreases in travel and electricity use, we estimate the county-level expected improvements in air quality, and, therefore, expected declines in mortality. Overall, we estimate that, for a month of social distancing, the expected premature deaths due to air pollution from personal vehicle travel and electricity consumption declined by approximately 360 deaths, or about 25% of the baseline 1500 deaths. In addition, we estimate that CO2 emissions from these sources fell by 46 million metric tons (a reduction of approximately 19%) over the same time frame.

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COVID-19 and Air Pollution: Measuring Pandemic Impact to Air Quality in Five European Countries

Cited by 61 publications

References 50 publications

Evolution of Gaseous and Particulate Pollutants in the Air: What Changed after Five Lockdown Weeks at a Southwest Atlantic European Region (Northwest of Spain) Due to the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic?

Evolution of Gaseous and Particulate Pollutants in the Air: What Changed after Five Lockdown Weeks at a Southwest Atlantic European Region (Northwest of Spain) Due to the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic?

Air Quality during New Year’s Eve: A Biomonitoring Study with Moss

Expected Health Effects of Reduced Air Pollution from COVID-19 Social Distancing

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