Modeling the Effect of COVID-19 Lockdown on Mobility and NO2 Concentration in the Lombardy Region

Piccoli, Andrea; Agresti, Valentina; Balzarini, Alessandra; Bedogni, Marco; Bonanno, Riccardo; Collino, Elena; Colzi, Filippo; Lacavalla, Matteo; Lanzani, G.; Pirovano, Guido; Riva, Federico; Riva, G. M.; Toppetti, A.

doi:10.3390/atmos11121319

Cited by 35 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…PM 2.5 comes mainly from the combustion of fossil fuels such as car exhaust fumes, coal combustion, etc. PM 10 , in turn, can come from industrial chimneys, dust from construction sites, and fine particles resulting from the interaction of sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides in the air [34]. In Poland, the most important source of PMs (in particular PM 10 ) is low emission.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On 30 January 2020, the World Health Organization announced that the new coronavirus epidemic poses a public health threat, and the disease itself has been dubbed corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19 for short) [31]. To stop the pandemic, unprecedented restrictions were introduced, resulting in a slowdown in the economy, which in turn eliminated or reduced some sources of pollution, including vehicle traffic, construction sites, and coal-fired factories [32][33][34]. However, this did not stop the pandemic, which spread throughout the world over the next few months, affecting most of the world's population.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Air Pollution Observations in Selected Locations in Poland during the Lockdown Related to COVID-19

Rogulski

Badyda

2021

Atmosphere

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The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has caused huge changes in people’s daily habits and had a significant impact on the economy. The lockdowns significantly reduced road traffic and meant that many people worked remotely. Therefore, the question arose as to how the reduced road traffic and stays of residents at home affected the degree of pollution and the structure of major air pollutants. To answer this question, the article presents an analysis of changes in typical air pollutants (PM10, PM2.5, NO2) in the five largest Polish cities and one of the voivodships. The data from the Polish State Environmental Monitoring were used for the analysis. The analysis showed that the period of the first lockdown in Poland (April 2020), despite the reduced road traffic, resulted in a significant increase in PM10 emissions (9–91% during working days and an average of 30% on Saturdays and Sundays), a slight increase in PM2.5 emissions (on average from 2% to 11% for all analyzed locations), and a reduction in NO2 emissions (on average from 6% to 11% for all analyzed locations) compared to the period before the lockdown. However, the changes were not homogeneous—in Łódź and Warsaw, in most cases, an increase in all analyzed pollutants was observed, and the greatest decrease in pollution took place in Małopolska voivodship (including Kraków). Comparing the data from April 2020 to the data from April 2019, the overall difference in the PMs concentrations was small, although there are places where there has been a significant decrease (Wrocław, Poznań), and there were also places where the concentration increased (Warsaw, Łódź, Małopolska). In the case of nitrogen dioxide, pollution concentration decreased in most locations. The only exception was the background stations in Warsaw, where the increase was 27%.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Air Pollution Observations in Selected Locations in Poland during the Lockdown Related to COVID-19

Rogulski

Badyda

2021

Atmosphere

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“…Several studies have been conducted on the impact of the lockdown on Lombardy's air quality (Cameletti, 2020;Collivignarelli et al, 2020;Piccoli et al, 2020;Putaud et al, 2020). However, not all results are fully concordant: in fact, while Putaud et al claim that they have not observed any significant changes in PM10 concentrations in Milan, Collivignarelli et al argue that the lockdown had a positive effect on them, as well as on PM2.5 and other air pollutants.…”

Section: Comparison With Previous Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of COVID-19 Lockdowns on Particulate Matter Emissions in Lombardy and Italian Citizens' Consumption Habits

Rovetta

2021

Front. Sustain.

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Italy has been one of the first nations in the world to be heavily affected by COVID-19. A wide range of containment measures has been adopted from February to December 2020 to mitigate the pandemic. In this regard, the present research sets out to evaluate two aspects: (i) the impact of lockdowns on the concentrations of particulate matter (PM) 10 and 2.5 in the Lombardy region, and (ii) how anti-COVID-19 restrictions influenced Italian citizens' consumption habits. To do this, the average daily concentrations of PM10 and PM2.5 during 2020 in all the provinces of Lombardy were compared with those of the previous years through Welch's t-test. The same procedure was adopted to estimate the change in Google relative search volumes of home delivery services and smart working on a national scale. Two mean values were considered statistically confident when t < 1.5, suspiciously non-confident when 1.5 ≤ t < 1.9, and non-confident when t ≥ 1.9. Seasonalities and trends were assessed both graphically and with Augmented Dickey-Fuller, Phillips-Perron, and Kwiatkowski-Phillips-Schmidt-Shin tests. Finally, Pearson and Spearman correlations between changes in citizens' behavior and specific key events related to COVID-19 have been dealt with. The P-value threshold was indicatively set at 0.05. Microsoft Excel 2020 and Google Sheets were used as data analysis software. This paper showed: (i) the limited or insufficient effectiveness of lockdowns in reducing PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations in Lombardy, and (ii) a significant change in the consumption habits of Italian citizens, thus leading to both positive and negative results in terms of sustainability. Therefore, it is high time that both Italian and international environmental protection authorities thoroughly investigated the role of non-mobility-related sources of particulate emissions to impose effective rules on home delivery services. Moreover, further research is required for the understanding of anthropogenic, environmental, and atmospheric phenomena that influence the concentrations of PM10 and PM2.5.

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“…Numerous studies around the world, as in China and East Asia [13][14][15], India [16][17][18], Southeast Asia [19,20], Europe [21][22][23][24][25][26], North America [27,28] and South America [29,30], have analyzed the effect of COVID-19 lockdowns in spring 2020 on concentrations of particulate matter (PM) and gaseous pollutants (NO x , CO, O 3 , SO 2 , NH 3 , etc.). All these studies agree on an unprecedented reduction of air pollution worldwide due to drastic limitations in traffic and industrial activity [31][32][33].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of the COVID-19 Lockdown Effects on Spectral Aerosol Scattering and Absorption Properties in Athens, Greece

et al. 2021

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COVID-19 is evolving into one of the worst pandemics in recent history, claiming a death toll of over 1.5 million as of December 2020. In an attempt to limit the expansion of the pandemic in its initial phase, nearly all countries imposed restriction measures, which resulted in an unprecedented reduction of air pollution. This study aims to assess the impact of the lockdown effects due to COVID-19 on in situ measured aerosol properties, namely spectral-scattering (bsca) and absorption (babs) coefficients, black carbon (BC) concentrations, single-scattering albedo (SSA), scattering and absorption Ångström exponents (SAE, AAE) in Athens, Greece. Moreover, a comparison is performed with the regional background site of Finokalia, Crete, for a better assessment of the urban impact on observed differences. The study examines pre-lockdown (1–22 March 2020), lockdown (23 March–3 May 2020) and post-lockdown (4–31 May 2020) periods, while the aerosol properties are also compared with a 3–4 year preceding period (2016/2017–2019). Comparison of meteorological parameters in Athens, between the lockdown period and respective days in previous years, showed only marginal variation, which is not deemed sufficient in order to justify the notable changes in aerosol concentrations and optical properties. The largest reduction during the lockdown period was observed for babs compared to the pre-lockdown (−39%) and to the same period in previous years (−36%). This was intensified during the morning traffic hours (−60%), reflecting the large decrease in vehicular emissions. Furthermore, AAE increased during the lockdown period due to reduced emissions from fossil-fuel combustion, while a smaller (−21%) decrease was observed for bsca along with slight increases (6%) in SAE and SSA values, indicating that scattering aerosol properties were less affected by the decrease in vehicular emissions, as they are more dependent on regional sources and atmospheric processing. Nighttime BC emissions related to residential wood-burning were slightly increased during the lockdown period, with respect to previous-year means. On the contrary, aerosol and pollution changes during the lockdown period at Finokalia were low and highly sensitive to natural sources and processes.

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Modeling the Effect of COVID-19 Lockdown on Mobility and NO2 Concentration in the Lombardy Region

Cited by 35 publications

References 34 publications

Air Pollution Observations in Selected Locations in Poland during the Lockdown Related to COVID-19

Air Pollution Observations in Selected Locations in Poland during the Lockdown Related to COVID-19

The Impact of COVID-19 Lockdowns on Particulate Matter Emissions in Lombardy and Italian Citizens' Consumption Habits

Assessment of the COVID-19 Lockdown Effects on Spectral Aerosol Scattering and Absorption Properties in Athens, Greece

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