| Title: | Response of major air pollutants to COVID-19 lockdowns in China |
| Author(s): | Pei Z; Han G; Ma X; Su H; Gong W; |
| Address: | "School of Remote Sensing and Information Engineering, Wuhan University, China. School of Remote Sensing and Information Engineering, Wuhan University, China. Electronic address: udhan@whu.edu.cn. State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, China. Wuhan University School of Medicine, Wuhan University, China" |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.140879 |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 1879-1026 (Electronic) 0048-9697 (Print) 0048-9697 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "COVID-19 suddenly struck Wuhan at the end of 2019 and soon spread to the whole country and the rest of world in 2020. To mitigate the pandemic, China authority has taken unprecedentedly strict measures across the country. That provides a precious window to study how the air quality response to quick decline of anthropogenic emissions in terms of national scale, which would be critical basis to make atmospheric governance policies in the future. In this work, we utilized observations from both remote sensing and in-situ measurements to investigate impacts of COVID-19 lockdown on different air pollutions in different regions of China. It is witnessed that the PM(2.5) concentrations exhibited distinct trends in different regions, despite of plunges of NO(2) concentrations over the whole country. The steady HCHO concentration in urban area provides sufficient fuels for generations of tropospheric O(3), leading to high concentrations of O(3), especially when there is not enough NO to consume O(3) via the titration effect. Moreover, the SO(2) concentration kept steady at a low level regardless of cities. As a conclusion, the COVID-19 lockdown indeed helped reduce NO(2) concentration. However, the atmospheric quality in urban areas of China has not improved overall due to lockdown measures. It underscores the significance of comprehensive control of atmospheric pollutants in cleaning air. Reducing VOCs (volatile organic compounds) concentrations in urban areas would be a critical mission for better air quality in the future" |
| Keywords: | "Air Pollutants/*analysis Air Pollution/*analysis Betacoronavirus Covid-19 China Cities *Coronavirus Infections Environmental Monitoring Humans *Pandemics Particulate Matter/analysis *Pneumonia, Viral SARS-CoV-2 Air quality O(3) Pm(2.5) Sentinel-5;" |
| Notes: | "MedlinePei, Zhipeng Han, Ge Ma, Xin Su, Hang Gong, Wei eng Netherlands 2020/08/08 Sci Total Environ. 2020 Nov 15; 743:140879. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.140879. Epub 2020 Jul 11" |
