Air quality improvement and its relation to mobility during COVID-19 lockdown in Marmara Region, Turkey

Abstract

The outbreak of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (hereafter COVID-19) has changed the daily routines of people around the world. When the first case was confirmed on 11 March 2020 in Turkey, the number of cases reached 4500 per day by 10 April in Turkey. Afterwards, the government declared more restrictive lockdown measures for 31 metropolitan cities starting 10 April, and it was implemented for the following weekends, national, and religious holidays. The change in concentrations of PM₁₀, PM_2.5, and NO₂ during these measures with respect to the pre-lockdown period, the same period in the previous years and for different levels of measures for the cities in the Marmara Region of Turkey was investigated in this study. The daily mean concentrations of PM₁₀, PM_2.5, and NO₂ obtained from 11 stations operated by the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization and Google mobility data are used in this study. Average PM_2.5 and NO₂ concentrations during the lockdown period declined with respect to the pre-lockdown period and the previous year for all stations. Average PM₁₀ concentrations during the lockdown of 8 of 11 stations declined, while the rest of the stations increased with respect to the pre-lockdown period. In 9 of the 11 stations, the average concentration of PM₁₀ decreased compared to the previous four years. In 7 of the 11 stations, the number of days exceeding WHO limit for PM₁₀ was decreased during the lockdown period with respect to the pre-lockdown period. For PM_2.5, the number of days exceeding WHO limit was decreased during the lockdown period compared to the pre-lockdown period for all the stations. For NO₂, the number of days exceeding WHO limit was decreased during the lockdown period compared to the pre-lockdown period for 7 of the 8 stations. There is a significant relationship between mobility decrease and NO₂ concentrations in large cities. The correlation coefficients are generally lower in small cities in the study region.

Keywords: Air pollution; COVID-19; Marmara Region; Turkey.

Fig. 1

The Marmara Region and location of air quality monitoring stations (Google Earth, & Wikipedia, 2021)

Fig. 2

(a) Outer time series represent the daily mean PM₁₀ concentrations for the period of January 1–August 31, 2020. (b) Inner map represents the change of mean the PM₁₀ concentration during LDM with respect to the mean PM₁₀ concentrations of the same period of the previous 4 years

Fig. 3

The annual mean concentrations of PM₁₀

Fig. 4

(a) Time series located outer of the graph, represent the daily mean PM_2.5 concentrations for the period of January 1–August 31, 2020. (b) Inner map represents the change of mean PM_2.5 concentrations during LDM with respect to mean PM_2.5 concentrations of the same period of the previous year.

Fig. 5

The annual mean concentrations of PM_2.5

Fig. 6

Same in Fig. 3, except for NO₂

Fig. 7

The annual mean concentrations of NO₂

Fig. 8

Time series of the mobility during the LDM with respect to 1 January–16 February 2020 for the stations used in this study (negative values in y axis; yellow mobility lines represent the mobility change for Istanbul and Bursa by Apple (AMC represents Apple mobility change); brown mobility lines represent the mobility change for all the stations (GMC represents Google mobility change); black line represents the average mobility change during LDM period) and PM₁₀ (red), PM_2.5 (green), and NO₂ (blue) concentrations during LDM (positive values)