Seismic signature of the COVID-19 lockdown at the city scale: a case study with low-cost seismometers in the city of Querétaro, Mexico

Plaen, Raphaël de; Márquez-Ramírez, Víctor Hugo; Pérez‐Campos, Xyoli; Zúñiga, F. Ramón; Rodríguez-Pérez, Quetzalcóatl; González, Juan Martín Gómez; Capra, Lucía

doi:10.5194/se-12-713-2021

Cited by 10 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…The results showed rather good similarities between the noise and mobility data, indicating that the changes in seismic noise can be used to track the human activity in urban areas. We also observed a good match between the variation in seismic noise and data mobility's trends (Figure S4), confirming thus the previous results (Cannata et al, 2021;De Plaen et al, 2021;Diaz et al, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

“…However, people were allowed to go to the park for sports activities (e.g., running) during the lockdown, and the noise peaks observed on Saturday and Sunday mornings during the lockdown are related to such outdoor sports activities. To provide some insights into the causes of the noise changes during the lockdown, correlation between noise time series and community mobility data provided by Google and Apple was performed globally (Lecocq et al, 2020a) and at local scale (Cannata et al, 2021;De Plaen et al, 2021;Diaz et al, 2021). The results showed rather good similarities between the noise and mobility data, indicating that the changes in seismic noise can be used to track the human activity in urban areas.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The effect of 2020 COVID-19 lockdown measures on seismic noise recorded in Romania

Grecu¹,

Borleanu²,

Tiganescu³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Abstract. After the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic in March 2019, Romania followed the example of many other countries and imposed a series of restrictive measures, including restricting people's mobility and closing social, cultural and industrial activities to prevent the spread of the disease. In this study, we analyze continuous vertical component recordings from the stations of the Romanian Seismic Network – one of the largest networks in Europe containing 148 stations – to explore in detail the seismic noise variation associated with the reduced human mobility and activity in Romania due to COVID-19. We focused our investigation on four frequency bands – 2–8 Hz, 4–14 Hz, 15–25 Hz and 25–40 Hz – and found that the largest reductions in seismic noise associated with the lockdown corresponds to the high frequency range, from 15 to 40 Hz. We found that all the stations with large reductions in seismic noise (> ~40 %) are located inside and near schools or in buildings, indicating that at these frequencies the drop is related to the drastic reduction of human activity in these edificies. In the lower frequency range (2–8 Hz and 4–14 Hz) the variability of the noise reduction among the stations is lower than in the high frequency range, and the noise level is reduced by up to 35 %. This drop is due to reduced traffic during the lockdown, as most of the stations showing such changes in seismic noise in these bands are located within cities, near main or side streets. In addition to the noise reduction observed at stations located in populated areas, we also found seismic noise lockdown-related changes at several stations located far from urban areas, with movement of people in the vicinity of the station explaining the noise reductions. Apart from the opportunity to investigate in more detail the seismic noise characteristics due to human mobility and activity, we show that noise reduction during the lockdown has also improved the earthquake detection capability of the accelerometers located in noisy urban environments.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of 2020 COVID-19 lockdown measures on seismic noise recorded in Romania

Grecu¹,

Borleanu²,

Tiganescu³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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“…This is also the case for the city of Querétaro, where a low-cost Raspberry Shake network has been recently installed. The effect of the lockdown on seismic noise in this city has been analysed by De Plaen et al (2021). They also analysed the correlation of the median seismic rms with community mobility reported by Google.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We analyse the data for 2019 and 2020 up to 14 November to analyse the variations in the seismic noise as a response to the confinement measurements. Unfortunately, during the lockdown, some seismic stations malfunctioned, and it was not possible to service them (Pérez-Campos et al, 2021), resulting in a loss of real-time data.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of confinement due to COVID-19 on seismic noise in Mexico

Pérez‐Campos

Espíndola²,

González-Ávila

et al. 2021

Solid Earth

Self Cite

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Abstract. The world experienced the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic by the end of 2019 to the beginning of 2020. Governments implemented strategies to contain it, most based on lockdowns. Mexico was no exception. The lockdown was initiated in March 2020, and with it, a reduction in the seismic noise level was witnessed by the seismic stations of the national and Valley of Mexico networks. Stations located in municipalities with more than 50 000 people usually experience larger seismic noise levels at frequencies between 1 and 5 Hz, associated with human activity. The largest noise levels are recorded in Mexico City, which has the largest population in the country. The largest drop was observed in Hermosillo, Sonora; however, it was also the city with the fastest return to activities, which seems to correlate with a quick increase in confirmed COVID-19 cases. Mexico initiated a traffic-light system to modulate the re-opening of economic activities for each state. Therefore, since 1 June, noise levels have generally reflected the colour of the state traffic light. Furthermore, the reduction in the noise level at seismic stations has allowed identification of smaller earthquakes without signal processing. Also, people in cities have perceived smaller or more distant quakes.

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“…Global government-imposed lockdowns to combat the COVID-19 pandemic have intensified the study of anthropogenic seismic noise, as the staggered easing of restrictions would aid the characterization of dominant noise sources. At the same time, the reduced noise levels during lockdowns make it possible to detect natural events that otherwise drown in the noise (De Plaen et al, 2021;Grecu et al, 2021) and thus improve seismic hazard estimates. Notably, in a global study of lockdown effects on seismic amplitudes, Lecocq, Hicks, et al (2020) also observed a significant reduction in seismic noise at 20 GSN stations.…”

Section: Environmental Seismology Beyond Global Networkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Achievements and Prospects of Global Broadband Seismographic Networks After 30 Years of Continuous Geophysical Observations

Ringler

Anthony

Aster

et al. 2022

Reviews of Geophysics

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Global seismographic networks (GSNs) emerged during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, facilitated by seminal international developments in theory, technology, instrumentation, and data exchange. The mid‐ to late‐twentieth century saw the creation of the World‐Wide Standardized Seismographic Network (1961) and International Deployment of Accelerometers (1976), which advanced global geographic coverage as seismometer bandwidth increased greatly allowing for the recording of the Earth's principal seismic spectrum. The modern era of global observations and rapid data access began during the 1980s, and notably included the inception of the GEOSCOPE initiative (1982) and GSN (1988). Through continual improvements, GEOSCOPE and the GSN have realized near‐real time recording of ground motion with state‐of‐art data quality, dynamic range, and timing precision to encompass 180 seismic stations, many in very remote locations. Data from GSNs are increasingly integrated with other geophysical data (e.g., space geodesy, infrasound and Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar). Globally distributed seismic data are critical to resolving crust, mantle, and core structure; illuminating features of the plate tectonic and mantle convection system; rapid characterization of earthquakes; identification of potential tsunamis; global nuclear test verification; and provide sensitive proxies for environmental changes. As the global geosciences community continues to advance our understanding of Earth structure and processes controlling elastic wave propagation, GSN infrastructure offers a springboard to realize increasingly multi‐instrument geophysical observatories. Here, we review the historical, scientific, and monitoring heritage of GSNs, summarize key discoveries, and discuss future associated opportunities for Earth Science.

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Seismic signature of the COVID-19 lockdown at the city scale: a case study with low-cost seismometers in the city of Querétaro, Mexico

Cited by 10 publications

References 22 publications

The effect of 2020 COVID-19 lockdown measures on seismic noise recorded in Romania

The effect of 2020 COVID-19 lockdown measures on seismic noise recorded in Romania

The effect of confinement due to COVID-19 on seismic noise in Mexico

Achievements and Prospects of Global Broadband Seismographic Networks After 30 Years of Continuous Geophysical Observations

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