The Effects of COVID-19-related Driving Restrictions on Air Quality in an Industrial City

Abstract

To slow the spread of COVID-19, the state of emergency was announced in Kazakhstan on March 16, 2020. Ust-Kamenogorsk instituted COVID-19 lockdown measures on April 2, 2020. The restrictions reduced the flow of traffic in the city, but did not have a major impact on the large industries and power plants. In the areas with a complex profile of emission sources, traffic restriction measures alone may hardly tackle serious air pollution. This natural experiment allowed to test how reduction in transport movement affects air quality in Ust-Kamenogorsk, as there is a tendency to hold transport as being a major cause of air pollution in Ust-Kamenogorsk.

Seasonal Variations and Effect of COVID-19 Lockdown Restrictions on the Air Quality in the Cities of Kazakhstan

“…Despite the reduction in NO 2 levels caused by the lockdown period, the number of days with NO 2 concentrations exceeding the WHO limits stayed nearly the same in all studied cities except Petropavlovsk. In this study, the results for NO 2 in Ust-Kamenogorsk are comparable with those of Assanov et al (Assanov et al 2021a ). However, there is a difference in obtained results on CO, SO 2 , and TSP in this study compared to the study by Assanov et al ( 2021a ), which are likely due to the differences in the definition of treatment (or studied) periods (emergency period vs. lockdown), years (2018–2020 vs. 2016–2020) and methodology.…”

“…However, the impact of lockdown measures was not uniform across different pollutants and areas. Some studies found insignificant changes in SO 2 or PM 10 concentrations (Pei et al 2020 ; Kerimray et al 2020b ; Assanov et al 2021a ; von Schneidemesser et al 2021 ; Bontempi et al 2022 ), which can be explained by the contribution of the non-traffic emissions sources. Despite the decrease in primary pollutants concentrations, it was observed that secondary pollutants levels, such as O 3 increased (Li and Tartarini 2020 ; Sharma et al 2020 ; Kerimray et al 2020b ; Bera et al 2021 ; von Schneidemesser et al 2021 ; Lou et al 2022 ).…”