Changes in air quality during the lockdown in Barcelona (Spain) one month into the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic
By A. Tobías, C. Carnerero, C. Reche, J. Massagué, M. Via, M. Minguillón, A. Alastuey, Xavier Monfort Querol. Science of the Total Environment, 2020
771 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Lockdown measures came into force in Spain from March 14th, two weeks after the start of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic, to reduce the epidemic curve. Our study aims to describe changes in air pollution levels during the lockdown measures in the city of Barcelona (NE Spain), by studying the time evolution of atmospheric pollutants recorded at the urban background and traffic air quality monitoring stations. After two weeks of lockdown, urban air pollution markedly decreased but with substantial differences among pollutants. The most significant reduction was estimated for BC and NO2 (−45 to −51%), pollutants mainly related to traffic emissions. A lower reduction was observed for PM10 (−28 to −31.0%). By contrast, O3 levels increased (+33 to +57% of the 8 h daily maxima), probably due to lower titration of O3 by NO and the decrease of NOx in a VOC-limited environment. Relevant differences in the meteorology of these two periods were also evidenced. The low reduction for PM10 is probably related to a significant regional contribution and the prevailing secondary origin of fine aerosols, but an in-depth evaluation has to be carried out to interpret this lower decrease. There is no defined trend for the low SO2 levels, probably due to the preferential reduction in emissions from the least polluting ships. A reduction of most pollutants to minimal concentrations are expected for the forthcoming weeks because of the more restrictive actions implemented for a total lockdown, which entered into force on March 30th. There are still open questions on why PM10 levels were much less reduced than BC and NO2 and on what is the proportion of the abatement of pollution directly related to the lockdown, without meteorological interferences.
Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f848c4483a57c3b375fdb7b85724b5b26e01ff1e
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Citations in the corpus
- COVID-19 lockdowns cause global air pollution declines (2020, result): “They also corroborate preliminary (not peer-reviewed) findings from studies in China (14), Spain (15), and the United States (16) which have documented local declines in pollutant concentrations during lockdown.”
- Social and Travel Lockdown Impact Considering Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) on Air Quality in Megacities of India: Present Benefits, Future Challenges and Way Forward (2020, background): “Similar declines in air pollution have been reported by other researchers like Tobías et al. (2020) in Barcelona; Dantas et al. (2020) in Rio de Jenario and Mahato et al. (2020) in Delhi.”