Air quality changes in New York City during the COVID-19 pandemic

Zangari, Shelby; Hill, Dustin; Charette, Amanda T.; Mirowsky, Jaime E.

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.140496

Cited by 200 publications

(157 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“… Adams (2020) , focusing on Ontario during the five-week Canadian lockdown, pinpointed a reduction of nitrogen dioxide and nitrogen oxides when compared to the previous 5-week control period. Along the same lines, Zangari et al (2020) noted a decrease of PM 2.5 (36%) and NO 2 (51%) concentrations in New York shortly after the lockdown. The study by Tobías et al (2020) describes the changes in air pollution levels stemming from the measures of containment in Barcelona.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 62%

Analysis of the scientific production of the effect of COVID-19 on the environment: A bibliometric study

Casado‐Aranda

Sánchez‐Fernández

Viedma-del-Jesús

2021

Environmental Research

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The fight against COVID-19 since January 2020 has become the top priority of more than 200 countries. In order to offer solutions to eradicate this global pandemic, the scientific community has published hundreds of articles covering a wide range of areas of knowledge. With the aim of synthesizing these publications, academics are resorting to bibliometric analyses from the perspectives of the disciplines such as biology, medicine, socioeconomics and tourism. Yet no bibliometric analysis has explored the diffuse and little-known growth of COVID-19 scientific publications in the field of environmental studies. The current study is the first of this type to fill this research gap. It has resorted to SciMAT software to evaluate the main topics, authors and journals of publications on the subject of COVID-19 combined with environmental studies spanning the period between 1 December 2019 and 6 September 2020. The search yielded a collection of 440 articles published in scientific journals indexed on by Web of Science and Scopus databases. These publications can be broken down into six main themes: (i) a sharp reduction in air pollution and an improvement of the level of water pollution; (ii) the relationship of wind speed (positive), ultraviolet radiation (positive) and humidity (negative) with the rate of infections; (iii) the effect of the pandemic on the food supply chain and waste habits; (iv) wastewater monitoring offers a great potential as an early warning sign of COVID-19 transmission; (v) artificial intelligence and smart devices can be of great use in monitoring citizen mobilization; and (vi) the lessons gleaned from the pandemic that help define actions to mitigate climate change. The results of the current study therefore offer an agenda for future research and constitute a starting point for academics in the field of environmental studies to evaluate the effects of COVID-19.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 62%

Analysis of the scientific production of the effect of COVID-19 on the environment: A bibliometric study

Casado‐Aranda

Sánchez‐Fernández

Viedma-del-Jesús

2021

Environmental Research

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“…By comparison, there have been reports of substantial decreases in PM 2.5 concentrations due to reduced human activity related to COVID-19 (e.g., Collivignarelli et al [ 16 ]; Kerimray et al [ 7 ]; Li et al [ 13 ]; Lian et al [ 4 ]; Sharma et al [ 15 ]; Zangari et al [ 19 ]). For example, Wuhan, which was subjected to a series of strict lockdown orders, saw a 36.9% decrease in PM 2.5 concentration [ 4 ].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Adversely, such reductions may have contributed to the elevated ozone (O 3 ) concentrations in Wuhan and cities in Southern Europe [ 18 ]. On the other hand, social restrictions might not lead to a significant difference in air quality in cities with low baseline concentrations of pollutants such as New York [ 19 ]. Owing to the apparent diversity in the air quality and COVID-19 situations among different regions, a specific case study that takes into account the unique conditions in each city can be helpful.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Air Quality Change in Seoul, South Korea under COVID-19 Social Distancing: Focusing on PM2.5

Han

Park

Kwak

et al. 2020

IJERPH

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Seoul, the most populous city in South Korea, has been practicing social distancing to slow down the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and other air pollutants measured in Seoul over the two 30 day periods before and after the start of social distancing are analyzed to assess the change in air quality during the period of social distancing. The 30 day mean PM2.5 concentration decreased by 10.4% in 2020, which is contrasted with an average increase of 23.7% over the corresponding periods in the previous 5 years. The PM2.5 concentration decrease was city-wide and more prominent during daytime than at nighttime. The concentrations of carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) decreased by 16.9% and 16.4%, respectively. These results show that social distancing, a weaker forcing toward reduced human activity than a strict lockdown, can help lower pollutant emissions. At the same time, synoptic conditions and the decrease in aerosol optical depth over the regions to the west of Seoul support that the change in Seoul’s air quality during the COVID-19 social distancing can be interpreted as having been affected by reductions in the long-range transport of air pollutants as well as local emission reductions.

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“…For policy-making purposes, these figures offer a more realistic scenario, because policymakers should consider long-term variations and different factors that affect them, avoiding misleading artifacts. Using a similar approach, Zangari et al (2020) showed that, even though PM 2.5 and NO 2 concentrations in New York decreased during the lockdown, no reductions were observed in the long-term analysis.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Air quality variations in Northern South America during the COVID-19 lockdown

Méndez-Espinosa

Rojas

Vargas

et al. 2020

Science of The Total Environment

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Lockdown measures led to air pollution decrease in several countries around the world such as China and India, whereas other regions experimented an increase in pollutant concentrations. Northern South America (NSA) was one of those areas where pollution changed during lockdown due to high fire activity. This study aims to analyze, for the first time in NSA, the behavior of selected criteria air pollutants during the implementation of the SARS-CoV-2 lockdown in two high populated cities of the region: Bogotá and Medellín in Colombia. A set of tools including surface measurements, as well as satellite and modeled data were used. 24-hour average concentrations of PM 10 , PM 2.5 , and NO 2 were collected from air quality stations for the lockdown period ranging from February 21 to June 30, 2020. The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) was used to analyze the fire flux OC as a biomass burning (BB) indicator, and tropospheric NO 2 concentrations were retrieved from TROPOMI. The HYSPLIT model was used to analyze back trajectories and fire data were obtained from MODIS sensor measurements. Our analysis shows short-term background NO 2 , PM 10 , and PM 2.5 concentration reductions of 60%, 44%, and 40%, respectively, for the strict lockdown; and 62%, 58%, and 69% for the relaxed lockdown. Corresponding long-term reductions were of 50%, 32%, and 9% for the strict lockdown; and 37%, 29%, and 19% for the relaxed lockdown. Regional BB increased PM 2.5 concentrations by 20 μg/m 3 during the strict lockdown, and the Saharan dust event increased PM 10 concentrations up to 168 μg/m 3 in Bogotá, and 104 μg/m 3 in Medellín, bringing an additional risk of morbidity and mortality for population. Regional BB has several causes that need to be properly managed to benefit local air quality improvement plans. Future cleaner transport policies equivalent to reduced lockdown mobility could bring pollution close to WHO guidelines.

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Air quality changes in New York City during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract: States was heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. • Linear time lag models show no difference in air quality between 2020 and 2015-2019. • Air quality trends should be considered when gauging short-term pollution changes.

Cited by 200 publications

References 28 publications

Analysis of the scientific production of the effect of COVID-19 on the environment: A bibliometric study

Analysis of the scientific production of the effect of COVID-19 on the environment: A bibliometric study

Air Quality Change in Seoul, South Korea under COVID-19 Social Distancing: Focusing on PM2.5

Air quality variations in Northern South America during the COVID-19 lockdown

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