On March 24, 2020, a partial lockdown was decreed in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, as a measure to hinder the spread of COVID-19, which consisted in prohibiting crowding and advising people to stay home, except for urgent or extremely necessary matters. Based on studies performed in other countries, this study aims to assess the impacts of the lockdown on the air quality of five cities in the state of São Paulo. Our study was conducted by using particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide as air quality indicators, and by correlating the contaminants concentrations with weather data. The results showed an increase in these contaminants in all cities within the first weeks after the lockdown compared with the weeks before the decree and with the same period in previous years. This result is inconsistent with the literature. Therefore, a secondary goal was set to investigate the possible cause (or causes) of such deterioration in air quality, which led to the increased number of wildfires. The anomalous dry weather favored the burning of vegetation in agricultural rural areas and in small, vegetated areas near the municipalities, and limited pollution scavenging by rainfall, both of which contributed to higher pollution concentration. We hypothesize the possible effects of worse air quality on the aggravation of COVID-19, but further research is necessary to obtain a complete assessment.
This paper brings the first results concerning a new analytic model to evaluate atmospheric dispersion in rocket launch scenarios, namely Generalized Integral Laplace Transform Technique for Rocket effluent dispersion model. The model is constituted by three different modules, being two pre-processors (micrometeorological parameters and deposition parameters) and the dispersion program. The dispersion calculations are made through the Generalized Integral Laplace Transform Technique solution of the two-dimensional, time-dependant, advectiondiffusion-deposition equation. The results show a set of simulations using data from the Chuva Project from the Centro de Lançamento de Alcântara for both stable and unstable planetary boundary layers, in order to evaluate model performance and illustration.
Este trabalho teve como objetivo realizar um estudo de caso para chuvas intensas e seus impactos nas ocorrências de alagamentos na cidade de Campinas, São Paulo, no ano de 2019. Dados de chuva acumulada diária foram obtidos de 8 pluviômetros distribuídos na cidade e dados de alagamento foram obtidos junto à Defesa Civil municipal, referentes aos chamados atendidos. Na análise espacial, foi constatada uma relativa concordância com a ocorrência ou não de chuva entre os pluviômetros. No entanto, ficou evidente a variabilidade espacial da quantidade de chuva, o que demonstra a ocorrência de chuva localmente forte. A análise dos dados de alagamento permitiu determinar áreas mais propensas a esse tipo de evento. Aspectos como volume acumulado de chuva e configuração do relevo certamente proporcionam condições ideais para alagamentos. No entanto, a área mais afetada por alagamentos é relativamente mais elevada, o que sugere, por ser parte da região central e amplamente urbanizada, que a urbanização também contribui significativamente para a ocorrência de alagamentos.
<p>During COVID &#8211; 19 pandemic, the main strategy to prevent virus dissemination adopted worldwide was the social distancing, in different degrees (ranging from simple recommendations to the population, to complete lockdown). In this context, many studies were performed around the world to assess the impacts of such measures on the environment, specially on air quality. The reported results almost unanimously pointed to a reduction in air contaminants, mainly as a response to vehicular traffic depletion and, at some level, to reduced human and industrial activities. &#160;On March 24<sup>th</sup>, 2020, a partial lockdown was decreed in S&#227;o Paulo state, Brazil, and since then it has undergone, back and forth, several stages of strictness according to contamination and hospitalization rates, being stricter whenever intensive care units (ICU) occupation increased. Our study aims to evaluate environmental aspects (air quality and meteorology) in Campinas city (S&#227;o Paulo, Brazil), during the pandemic, from March 24<sup>th</sup> to December 31<sup>st</sup>, and compare it with the weeks prior to the social distancing and with the previous year. In addition to the environmental variables, the &#8220;social distancing index&#8221; (obtained by using mobile phone data to assess displacements) and medical data (hospital admissions and deaths) were employed to a preliminary analysis of&#160; the influence of environmental factors on COVID &#8211; 19 evolution in the city.</p>
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