The impact of air pollution on COVID-19 pandemic varied within different cities in South America using different models

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - There is a rising concern that air pollution plays an important role in the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the results were not consistent on the...     

Health impact assessment of air pollutants during the COVID-19 pandemic in a Brazilian metropolis

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Studies around the world have revealed reduced levels of atmospheric particulate matter in periods of greatest human mobility restriction to contain...     

The COVID-19 impact on air condition usage: a shift towards residential energy saving

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The enforcement of the Movement Control Order to curtail the spread of COVID-19 has affected home energy consumption, especially HVAC systems....     

Property development during the COVID-19 pandemic: challenges and outlook in Malaysia

Through administrative research and media records, this paper aims to examine and highlight the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Malaysian workers, property development, construction sites, and the national economy. The development of real estate and the construction industry can significantly impact socio-economic growth and infrastructure development. Adequate building and infrastructure construction can ensure national economic stability, job creation, community cohesion, and higher living standards. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2019, many countries, including Malaysia, have reported an increased number of virus cases. According to the Ministry of Health, 9316 cases and 314 COVID-19 clusters were discovered in Malaysia, with a 38.55–48.06% prevalence for factories, a 12.55–15.29% prevalence for community spreading, an 8.6–11.56% prevalence for construction sites, a 5.53–7.96% prevalence for educational sites, and a 7.01% prevalence for shopping areas. Several governments-imposed lockdowns, movement, and proximity restrictions during the pandemic due to the high infection rates at property development sites. However, due to inactivity in various sectors such as the construction industry, these measures have significantly impacted the national economy. As a result, the pandemic has had an impact on workers, production costs, and project completion timelines, resulting in operational issues and policy concerns. Overall, the records reviewed revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted real estate development, the housing market, and the construction industry. As a result, sustained and targeted policies are required to support Malaysia’s construction industry’s socio-economic growth and infrastructure development.

     

The COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on environment: the case of the major cities in Pakistan

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - In Wuhan city, China, a pneumonia-like disease of unknown origin triggered a catastrophe. This disease has spread to 215 nations, affecting a diverse...     

Economic and financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Asia

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The world is facing a COVID-19 pandemic outbreak with an unprecedented and enormous impact on the lives of humankind. The economic engine has suffered...     

Nature and COVID-19: The pandemic,the environment,and the way ahead

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought profound social, political, economic, and environmental challenges to the world. The virus may have emerged from wildlife reservoirs linked to environmental disruption, was transmitted to humans via the wildlife trade, and its spread was facilitated by economic globalization. The pandemic arrived at a time when wildfires, high temperatures, floods, and storms amplified human suffering. These challenges call for a powerful response to COVID-19 that addresses social and economic development, climate change, and biodiversity together, offering an opportunity to bring transformational change to the structure and functioning of the global economy. This biodefense can include a “One Health” approach in all relevant sectors; a greener approach to agriculture that minimizes greenhouse gas emissions and leads to healthier diets; sustainable forms of energy; more effective international environmental agreements; post-COVID development that is equitable and sustainable; and nature-compatible international trade. Restoring and enhancing protected areas as part of devoting 50% of the planet’s land to environmentally sound management that conserves biodiversity would also support adaptation to climate change and limit human contact with zoonotic pathogens. The essential links between human health and well-being, biodiversity, and climate change could inspire a new generation of innovators to provide green solutions to enable humans to live in a healthy balance with nature leading to a long-term resilient future.     

A review on impacts of COVID-19 on global agricultural system and Scope for Bangladesh after pandemic

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating effect on the global food production system. Large-scale food producing countries restricted exports for food...     

Spatiotemporal analysis of COVID-19, air pollution,climate, and meteorological conditions in a metropolitan region of Iran

The COVID-19 pandemic has a close relationship with local environmental conditions. This study explores the effects of climate characteristics and air pollution on COVID-19 in Isfahan province, Iran. A number of COVID-19 positive cases, main air pollutants, air quality index (AQI), and climatic variables were received from March 1, 2020, to January 19, 2021. Moreover, CO, NO₂, and O₃ tropospheric levels were collected using Sentinel-5P satellite data. The spatial distribution of variables was estimated by the ordinary Kriging and inverse weighted distance (IDW) models. A generalized linear model (GLM) was used to analyze the relationship between environmental variables and COVID-19. The seasonal trend of nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), wind speed, solar energy, and rainfall like COVID-19 was upward in spring and summer. The high and low temperatures increased from April to August. All variables had a spatial autocorrelation and clustered pattern except AQI. Furthermore, COVID-19 showed a significant association with month, climate, solar energy, and NO₂. Suitable policy implications are recommended to be performed for improving people’s healthcare and control of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study could survey the local spread of COVID-19, with consideration of the effect of environmental variables, and provides helpful information to health ministry decisions for mitigating harmful effects of environmental change. By means of the proposed approach, probably the COVID-19 spread can be recognized by knowing the regional climate in major cities. The present study also finds that COVID-19 may have an effect on climatic condition and air pollutants.

     

The COVID-19 pandemic: prediction study based on machine learning models

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - COVID-19 was first discovered in Wuhan, China in December 2019. It is one of the worst pandemics in human history. Recent studies reported that...     

The global impact of ozone on agricultural crop yields under current and future air quality legislation

In this paper we evaluate the global impact of surface ozone on four types of agricultural crop. The study is based on modelled global hourly ozone fields for the year 2000 and 2030, using the global 1°×1° 2-way nested atmospheric chemical transport model (TM5). Projections for the year 2030 are based on the relatively optimistic “current legislation (CLE) scenario”, i.e. assuming that currently approved air quality legislation will be fully implemented by the year 2030, without a further development of new abatement policies. For both runs, the relative yield loss due to ozone damage is evaluated based on two different indices (accumulated concentration above a 40 ppbV threshold and seasonal mean daytime ozone concentration respectively) on a global, regional and national scale. The cumulative metric appears to be far less robust than the seasonal mean, while the seasonal mean shows satisfactory agreement with measurements in Europe, the US, China and Southern India and South-East Asia.Present day global relative yield losses are estimated to range between 7% and 12% for wheat, between 6% and 16% for soybean, between 3% and 4% for rice, and between 3% and 5% for maize (range resulting from different metrics used). Taking into account possible biases in our assessment, introduced through the global application of “western” crop exposure–response functions, and through model performance in reproducing ozone-exposure metrics, our estimates may be considered as being conservative.Under the 2030 CLE scenario, the global situation is expected to deteriorate mainly for wheat (additional 2–6% loss globally) and rice (additional 1–2% loss globally). India, for which no mitigation measures have been assumed by 2030, accounts for 50% of these global increase in crop yield loss. On a regional-scale, significant reductions in crop losses by CLE-2030 are only predicted in Europe (soybean) and China (wheat).Translating these assumed yield losses into total global economic damage for the four crops considered, using world market prices for the year 2000, we estimate an economic loss in the range $14–$26 billion. About 40% of this damage is occurring in China and India. Considering the recent upward trends in food prices, the ozone-induced damage to crops is expected to offset a significant portion of the GDP growth rate, especially in countries with an economy based on agricultural production.     

Interactions of forests with secondary air pollutants: some challenges for future research

The effects of ozone and other photochemical oxidants on individual trees have been studied for several decades, but there has been much less research on the potential effects on entire forest ecosystems. Given that ozone and other oxidants affect the production and subsequent fate of biogenic volatile organic compounds that act as signalling molecules, there is a need for more detailed study of the role of oxidants in modifying trophic interactions in forests. Deposition of fine particulates to forests may act as a source of nutrients, but also changes leaf surface properties, increasing the duration of surface wetness and modifying the habitat for epiphytic organisms, leading to increased risks from pathogens. Even where this pathway contributes a relatively small input of nutrients to forests, the indirect effects on canopy processes and subsequent deposition to the forest floor in throughfall and litter may play a more important role that has yet to be fully investigated.     

Biomonitoring of trace element air pollution: principles,possibilities and perspectives

This paper discusses the biomonitoring of trace element air pollution. Much attention is given to both lichens and mosses as the dominant plant species used in biomonitoring surveys. Biomonitoring is regarded as a means to assess trace element concentrations in aerosols and deposition. This implies that the monitor should concentrate the elements of interest and quantitatively reflect its elemental ambient conditions. Environmental impact on the biomonitor's behaviour is viewed as resulting in changes in the dose-response relationships. The current literature is briefly reviewed, for plant's behaviour modelling, for laboratory studies on physiological processes responsible for accumulation, retention and release, and for field work on quantification of dose-response relationships. Monitoring of elemental atmospheric availability is presented as deriving its relevance from presumed impact on both ecosystem performance and human health; source apportionment is regarded as an important parallel result for purposes of emission regulatory management. For source apportionment, the paper argues in favor of multi-elemental determinations, supplemented by information on organic compounds and elemental chemical forms. Furthermore, the discussion points towards more explicit coupling of biomonitoring data to knowledge and databases on both emission registration, ecosystem performance and human health. This means that multidisciplinary programs should be set up, which accommodate expert inputs from biomonitoring, emission control programs, analytical chemistry, ecology, and epidemiology.     

Seaweed future cultivation in Chile: perspectives and challenges

Production of seaweeds in Chile has fluctuated between 120,000 and 316,000 wet metric tons per year during the last ten years. The most important Phaeophyta are exploited for alginate production and as abalone feed. Among the Rhodophyta, Chilean production comes mainly from wild stocks, as at present cultivation on a commercial scale is restricted to Gracilaria. Large scale production of this species has been the result of a sharp increase in the number of farms. During the last five years an important trend towards diversification of seaweed exploitation and cultivation has developed. The demand for brown algal materials for the alginate industry, abalone cultivation, seaweed flour production for human and animal feeding and the development of novel food products has encouraged the farming of Macrocystis pyrifera and of red edible seaweeds, such as Chondracanthus chamissoi and Callophyllis variegata, is also promoting the development of cultivation activities.     

The air quality forecast rote: Recent changes and future challenges

Air quality forecasting is a recent development, with most programs initiated only in the last 20 years. During the last decade, forecast preparation procedure—the forecast rote—has changed dramatically. This paper summarizes the unique challenges posed by air quality forecasting, details the current forecast rote, and analyzes prospects for future improvements. Because air quality forecasts must diagnose and predict several pollutants and their precursors in addition to standard meteorological variables, it is, compared with weather forecasts, a higher-uncertainty forecast. Forecasters seek to contain the uncertainty by “anchoring” the forecast, using an a priori field, and then “adjusting” the forecast using additional information. The air quality a priori, or first guess, field is a blend of past, current, and near-term future observations of the pollutants of interest, on both local and regional scales, and is typically coupled with predicted air parcel trajectories. Until recently, statistical methods, based on long-term training data sets, were used to adjust the first guess. However, reductions in precursor emissions in the United States, beginning in the late 1990s and continuing to the present, eroded the stationarity assumption for the training data sets and degraded forecast skill. Beginning in the mid-2000s, output from modified numerical air quality prediction (NAQP) models, originally developed to test pollution control strategies, became available in near real time for forecast support. The current adjustment process begins with the analyses and postprocessing of individual NAQP models and their ad hoc ensembles, often in concert with new statistical techniques. The final adjustment step uses forecaster expertise to assess the impact of mesoscale features not resolved by the NAQP models. It is expected that advances in model resolution, chemical data assimilation, and the formulation of emissions fields will improve mesoscale predictions by NAQP models and drive future changes in the forecast rote.

Implications: Routine air quality forecasts are now issued for nearly all the major U.S. metropolitan areas. Methods of forecast preparation—the forecast rote—have changed significantly in the last decade. Numerical air quality models have matured and are now an indispensable part of the forecasting process. All forecasting methods, particularly statistically based models, must be continually calibrated to account for ongoing local- and regional-scale emission reductions.     

The socioeconomic and environmental drivers of the COVID-19 pandemic: A review

In recent decades, there has been an intensification of the socioeconomic and environmental drivers of pandemics, including ecosystem conversion, meat consumption, urbanization, and connectivity among cities and countries. This paper reviews how these four systemic drivers help explain the dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic and other recent emerging infectious diseases, and the policies that can be adopted to mitigate their risks. Land-use change and meat consumption increase the likelihood of pathogen spillover from animals to people. The risk that such zoonotic outbreaks will then spread to become pandemics is magnified by growing urban populations and the networks of trade and travel within and among countries. Zoonotic spillover can be mitigated through habitat protection and restrictions on the wildlife trade. Containing infectious disease spread requires a high degree of coordination among institutions across geographic jurisdictions and economic sectors, all backed by international investment and cooperation.     

The detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in indoor air of dental clinics during the COVID-19 pandemic

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - In the indoor environment of dental clinics, dental personnel and patients are exposed to a risk of infection because of the transmission of...     

The genes road: impact of migration on newborn screening and health amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the Eastern Mediterranean region

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Nearly two-thirds of migrants residing in camps in Europe are women and children. Many of these children, being born on the way without essential...     

Association between air pollution and COVID-19 infection: evidence from data at national and municipal levels

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The impact of high concentrations of air pollution on COVID-19 has been a major air quality and life safety issue in recent studies. This study aimed...