Stringency of COVID-19 Containment Response Policies and Air Quality Changes: A Global Analysis across 1851 Cities

Abstract

The COVID-19 containment response policies (CRPs) had a major impact on air quality (AQ). These CRPs have been time-varying and location-specific. So far, despite having numerous studies on the effect of COVID-19 lockdown on AQ, a knowledge gap remains on the association between stringency of CRPs and AQ changes across the world, regions, nations, and cities. Here, we show that globally across 1851 cities (each more than 300 000 people) in 149 countries, after controlling for the impacts of relevant covariates (e.g., meteorology), Sentinel-5P satellite-observed nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) levels decreased by 4.9% (95% CI: 2.2, 7.6%) during lockdowns following stringent CRPs compared to pre-CRPs. The NO 2 levels did not change significantly during moderate CRPs and even increased during mild CRPs by 2.3% (95% CI: 0.7, 4.0%), which was 6.8% (95% CI: 2.0, 12.0%) across Europe and Central Asia, possibly due to population avoidance of public transportation in favor of private transportation. Among 1768 cities implementing stringent CRPs, we observed the most NO 2 reduction in more populated and polluted cities. Our results demonstrate that AQ improved when and where stringent COVID-19 CRPs were implemented, changed less under moderate CRPs, and even deteriorated under mild CRPs. These changes were location-, region-, and CRP-specific.

COVID-19 and Beyond: COVID-19 Interventions and Power Plant Emissions in the United States

“…Meteorological data (maximum relative humidity [%], wind speed at 10m [m/s], daily total precipitation [mm], and maximum temperature [K]) were collected from Google Earth Engine Cloud, as used previously by Chen et al and Zhang et al , We collected University of Idaho’s gridded surface meteorological daily dataset at 4 km × 4 km grid resolution from 2010 to 2020 using the rgee and reticulate R packages. , We matched the gridded data with each EGU’s location and aggregated to weekly mean (relative humidity, wind speed, and temperature) or sum (precipitation).…”

“…Most EGUs encompass multiple subunits, with a total of 5,363 subunits across the 1,654 EGUs. 38,41 We collected University of Idaho's gridded surface meteorological daily dataset at 4 km × 4 km grid resolution from 2010 to 2020 using the rgee and reticulate R packages. 42,43 We matched the gridded data with each EGU's location and aggregated to weekly mean (relative humidity, wind speed, and temperature) or sum (precipitation).…”

“…30,36 PM 2.5 in the U.S. has decreased by more than 35% over last two decades, 37 indicating the importance of considering long-term time trends. 28,38 This study quantifies changes in U.S. EGU emissions during and after COVID-19 lockdowns compared to hypothetical expected (i.e., business as usual�BAU) emissions over the same period accounting for long-term EGU emissions trends and meteorological variability. We employ a regression model and assess nationwide trends in energy economics and efficiencies to identify EGU characteristics associated with emissions changes.…”

Importance of air pollution control legislation in the prevention of environmentally related diseases

“…Diese Zahl der vorzeitigen Todesfälle entspricht im Prinzip der Gesundheitslast durch die Corona-Pandemie, die in den letzten 3 Jahren über 150.000 Todesfälle in Zusammenhang mit dem Corona-Virus (COVID-19) verzeichnete [ 30 ]. Die Lockdowns während der Corona-Pandemie haben vielerorts gezeigt, dass die Luftbelastung mit bestehenden Mitteln merklich verbessert werden kann [ 31 ], und in den verkehrsberuhigten Städten stieg die Lebensqualität aufgrund von weniger Lärm- und Luftbelastung, sodass manche Städte, z. B. Mailand, diesen Effekt weitertragen wollen, indem sie mit Pop-up-Rad- und Gehwegen den emissionsarmen Individualverkehr fördern [ 32 ].…”

Variations of air pollutant response to COVID-19 lockdown in cities of the Tibetan Plateau

“…20 Meanwhile, diverse policies have been adopted by governments across the world, such as limiting public transportation, encouraging or mandating working from home, and enforcing closure of public services. 21,22 Global researchers focused on the air quality change due to lockdown from February to May in 2020, and mostly in the urban agglomerates: [23][24][25] The total gaseous oxidant (O x = NO 2 + O 3 ) showed limited change as gains in O 3 compensated for drops in NO 2 . Decreasing trends of PM 2.5 were observed in most cities, and short-term and unexpected uctuations were accounted for the atmospheric oxidation enhancement due to reduced titration.…”