Changes in air pollution during COVID-19 lockdown in Spain: A multi-city study

The COVID-19 pandemic has escalated into one of the largest crises of the 21st Century. The new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, responsible for COVID-19, has spread rapidly all around the world. The Spanish Government was forced to declare a nationwide lockdown in view of the rapidly spreading virus and high mortality rate in the nation. This study investigated the impact of short-term lockdown during the period from March 15th to April 12th 2020 on the atmospheric levels of CO, SO₂, PM₁₀, O₃, and NO₂ over 11 representative Spanish cities. The possible influence of several meteorological factors (temperature, precipitation, wind, sunlight hours, minimum and maximum pressure) on the pollutants' levels were also considered. The results obtained show that the 4-week lockdown had significant impact on reducing the atmospheric levels of NO₂ in all cities except for the small city of Santander as well as CO, SO₂, and PM₁₀ in some cities, but resulted in increase of O₃ level.     

Characterization of the aerosol chemical composition during the COVID-19 lockdown period in Suzhou in the Yangtze River Delta, China

To control the spread of COVID-19, rigorous restrictions have been implemented in China, resulting in a great reduction in pollutant emissions. In this study, we evaluated the air quality in the Yangtze River Delta during the COVID-19 lockdown period using satellite and ground-based data, including particle matter (PM), trace gases, water-soluble ions (WSIs) and black carbon (BC). We found that the impacts of lockdown policy on air quality cannot be accurately assessed using MODIS aerosol optical depth (AOD) data, whereas the tropospheric nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) vertical column density can well reflect the influences of these restrictions on human activities. Compared to the pre-COVID period, the PM_2.5, PM₁₀, NO₂, carbon monoxide (CO), BC and WSIs during the lockdown in Suzhou were observed to decrease by 37.2%, 38.3%, 64.5%, 26.1%, 53.3% and 58.6%, respectively, while the sulfur dioxide (SO₂) and ozone (O₃) increased by 1.5% and 104.7%. The WSIs ranked in the order of NO₃^? > NH₄⁺ > SO₄^2- > Cl^? > Ca²⁺ > K⁺ > Mg²⁺ > Na⁺ during the lockdown period. By comparisons with the ion concentrations during the pre-COVID period, we found that the ions NO₃^?, NH₄⁺, SO₄^2?, Cl^?, Ca²⁺, K⁺ and Na⁺ decreased by 66.3%, 48.8%, 52.9%, 56.9%, 57.9% and 76.3%, respectively, during the lockdown, in contrast to Mg²⁺, which increased by 30.2%. The lockdown policy was found to have great impacts on the diurnal variations of Cl^?, SO₄^2?, Na⁺ and Ca²⁺.