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. 2020;13(11):1335-1342.
doi: 10.1007/s11869-020-00888-6. Epub 2020 Aug 9.

Fluctuations in environmental pollutants and air quality during the lockdown in the USA and China: two sides of COVID-19 pandemic

Awais Shakoor  1 , Xiaoyong Chen  2 , Taimoor Hassan Farooq  3   2 , Umer Shahzad  4 , Fatima Ashraf  5 , Abdul Rehman  6 , Najam E Sahar  7 , Wende Yan  3   2
Affiliations

Fluctuations in environmental pollutants and air quality during the lockdown in the USA and China: two sides of COVID-19 pandemic

Awais Shakoor et al. Air Qual Atmos Health. 2020.

Abstract

The World Health Organization declared the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) as a pandemic on March 11, 2020. Due to the global threat, many countries impose immediate lockdown. The impact of lockdown on the environmental pollutants and climate indicators gained considerable attention in the literature. This study aims to describe the variations in the environmental pollutants (CO, NO2, SO2, PM2.5 and PM10) with and without the lockdown period in the majorly hit states and provinces of the USA and China, respectively. Data during the first quarter year of 2019 and 2020 (lockdown period) was used in this study. Moreover, the effect of these pollutants on the pandemic spread was also studied. The results illustrated that the overall concentrations of CO, NO2 and PM2.5 were decreased by 19.28%, 36.7% and 1.10%, respectively, while PM10 and SO2 were increased by 27.81% and 3.81% respectively in five selected states of the USA during the lockdown period. However, in the case of chosen provinces of China, overall, the concentrations of all selected pollutants, i.e., CO, NO2, SO2, PM2.5 and PM10, were reduced by 26.53%, 38.98%, 18.36%, 17.78% and 37.85%, respectively. The COVID-19 reported cases and deaths were significantly correlated with NO2, PM2.5 and PM10 in both China and the USA. The findings of this study concluded that the limited anthropogenic activities in the lockdown situation due to this novel pandemic disease result in a significant improvement of air quality by reducing the concentrations of environmental pollutants. As the trend goes on, the reduction of most pollutant concentrations is expected as long as partial or complete lockdown goes on.Graphical abstract.

Keywords: China; Coronavirus; Environmental gradients; PM10; PM2.5; USA.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interestThe authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

None
Graphical abstract
Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Changes in the concentrations of environmental pollutants with and without lockdown condition in the five states of the USA. In some sub-figures, data about a few states is missing; we were not able to find the data of particular pollutants in those states (Lous is Louisiana; NCarolina is North Carolina and Albm is Alabama)
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Changes in the concentrations of environmental pollutants with and without lockdown condition in the five provinces of China (Gdong is Guangdong)
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Correlation between environmental pollutants in (a) the USA and (b) China in the first quarter of 2020
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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