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Impact of the COVID-19 Lockdown on Air Quality and Resulting Public Health Benefits in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area.

ABSTRACT: Meteorology and long-term trends in air pollutant concentrations may obscure the results from short-term policies implemented to improve air quality. This study presents changes in CO, NO₂, O₃, SO₂, PM₁₀, and PM_2.5 based on their anomalies during the COVID-19 partial (Phase 2) and total (Phase 3) lockdowns in Mexico City (MCMA). To minimise the impact of the air pollutant long-term trends, pollutant anomalies were calculated using as baseline truncated Fourier series, fitted with data from 2016 to 2019, and then compared with those from the lockdown. Additionally, days with stagnant conditions and heavy rain were excluded to reduce the impact of extreme weather changes. Satellite observations for NO₂ and CO were used to contrast the ground-based derived results. During the lockdown Phase 2, only NO₂ exhibited significant decreases (p < 0.05) of between 10 and 23% due to reductions in motor vehicle emissions. By contrast, O₃ increased (p < 0.05) between 16 and 40% at the same sites where NO₂ decreased. During Phase 3, significant decreases (p < 0.05) were observed for NO₂ (43%), PM₁₀ (20%), and PM_2.5 (32%) in response to the total lockdown. Although O₃ concentrations were lower in Phase 3 than during Phase 2, those did not decrease (p < 0.05) from the baseline at any site despite the total lockdown. SO₂ decreased only during Phase 3 in a near-road environment. Satellite observations confirmed that NO₂ decreased and CO stabilised during the total lockdown. Air pollutant changes during the lockdown could be overestimated between 2 and 10-fold without accounting for the influences of meteorology and long-term trends in pollutant concentrations. Air quality improved significantly during the lockdown driven by reduced NO₂ and PM_2.5 emissions despite increases in O₃, resulting in health benefits for the MCMA population. A health assessment conducted suggested that around 588 deaths related to air pollution exposure were averted during the lockdown. Our results show that to reduce O₃ within the MCMA, policies must focus on reducing VOCs emissions from non-mobile sources. The measures implemented during the COVID-19 lockdowns provide valuable information to reduce air pollution through a range of abatement strategies for emissions other than from motor vehicles.

SUBMITTER: Hernandez-Paniagua IY

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8026884 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:In the first months of 2016, the Mexico City Metropolitan Area experienced the worst air pollution crisis in the last decade, prompting drastic short-term solutions by the Mexico City Government and neighboring States. In order to help further the search for long-term sustainable solutions, we felt obliged to immediately release the results of our research regarding the monitoring of carbon sequestration by green roofs. Large-scale naturation, such as the implementation of green roofs, provides a way to partially mitigate the increased carbon dioxide output in urban areas. Here, we quantified the carbon sequestration capabilities of two ornamental succulent plant species, Sedum dendroideum and Sedum rubrotinctum, which require low maintenance, and little or no irrigation. To obtain a detailed picture of these plants' carbon sequestration capabilities, we measured carbon uptake on the Sedum plants by quantifying carbon dioxide exchange and fixation as organic acids, during the day and across the year, on a green roof located in Southern Mexico City. The species displayed their typical CAM photosynthetic metabolism. Moreover, our quantification allowed us to conservatively estimate that a newly planted green roof of Sedum sequesters approximately 180,000,000 ppm of carbon dioxide per year in a green roof of 100 square meters in the short term. The patterns of CAM and carbon dioxide sequestration were highly robust to the fluctuations of temperature and precipitation between seasons, and therefore we speculate that carbon sequestration would be comparable in any given year of a newly planted green roof. Older green roof would require regular trimming to mantain their carbon sink properties, but their carbon sequestration capabilities remain to be quantified. Nevertheless, we propose that Sedum green roofs can be part of the long-term solutions to mitigate the air pollution crisis in the Mexico City Metropolitan area, and other "megacities" with marked seasonal drought.

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Impact of the COVID-19 Lockdown on Air Quality and Resulting Public Health Benefits in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area.

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