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An investigation of the impacts of a successful COVID-19 response and meteorology on air quality in New Zealand.

ABSTRACT: The COVID-19 pandemic brought about national restrictions on people's movements, in effect commencing a socially engineered transport emission reduction experiment. In New Zealand during the most restrictive alert level (Level 4), roadside concentrations of nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) were reduced 48-54% compared to Business-as-usual (BAU) values. NO₂ concentrations rapidly returned to near mean levels as the alert levels decreased and restrictions eased. PM₁₀ and PM_2.5 responded differently to NO₂ during the different alert levels. This is due to particulates having multiple sources, many of natural origin and therefore less influenced by human activity. PM₁₀ and PM_2.5 concentrations were reduced during alert level 4 but to a lesser extent than NO₂ and with more variability across regions. Particulate concentrations increased notably during alert level 2 when many airsheds reported concentrations above the BAU means. To provide robust BAU reference concentrations, simple 5-year means were calculated along with predictions from machine learning modelling that, in effect, removed the influence of meteorology on observed concentrations. The results of this study show that latter method was found to be more closely aligned to observed values for NO₂ as well as PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ away from coastal regions.

SUBMITTER: Talbot N

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8137364 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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An investigation of the impacts of a successful COVID-19 response and meteorology on air quality in New Zealand.

Talbot Nick N Takada Akika A Bingham Andrew H AH Elder Dan D Lay Yee Samantha S Golubiewski Nancy E NE

Atmospheric environment (Oxford, England : 1994) 20210311

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about national restrictions on people's movements, in effect commencing a socially engineered transport emission reduction experiment. In New Zealand during the most restrictive alert level (Level 4), roadside concentrations of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) were reduced 48-54% compared to Business-as-usual (BAU) values. NO2 concentrations rapidly returned to near mean levels as the alert levels decreased and restrictions eased. PM10 and PM< ...[more]

PMID: 34035656

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Project description:The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) spread rapidly worldwide in the first half of 2020. Stringent national lockdown policies imposed by China to prevent the spread of the virus reduced anthropogenic emissions and improved air quality. A weather research and forecasting model coupled with chemistry was applied to evaluate the impact of meteorology and emissions on air quality during the COVID-19 outbreak (from January 23 to February 29, 2020) in mid-eastern China. The results show that air pollution episodes still occurred on polluted days and accounted for 31.6%-60.5% of the total number of outbreak days in mid-eastern China from January 23 to February 29, 2020. However, anthropogenic emissions decreased significantly, indicating that anthropogenic emission reduction cannot completely offset the impact of unfavorable meteorological conditions on air quality. Favorable meteorological conditions in 2019 improved the overall air quality for a COVID-19 outbreak in 2019 instead of 2020. PM2.5 concentrations decreased by 4.2%-29.2% in Beijing, Tianjin, Shijiazhuang, and Taiyuan, and increased by 6.1%-11.5% in Jinan and Zhengzhou. PM2.5 concentrations increased by 10.9%-20.5% without the COVID-19 outbreak of 2020 in mid-eastern China, and the frequency of polluted days increased by 5.3%-18.4%. Source apportionment of PM2.5 during the COVID-19 outbreak showed that industry and residential emissions were the dominant PM2.5 contributors (32.7%-49.6% and 26.0%-44.5%, respectively) followed by agriculture (18.7%-24.0%), transportation (7.7%-15.5%), and power (4.1%-5.9%). In Beijing, industrial and residential contributions to PM2.5 concentrations were lower (32.7%) and higher (44.5%), respectively, than in other cities (38.7%-49.6% for industry and 26.0%-36.2% for residential). Therefore, enhancing regional cooperation and implementing a united air pollution control are effective emission mitigation measures for future air quality improvement, especially the development of new technologies for industrial and cooking fumes.

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Dataset Information

An investigation of the impacts of a successful COVID-19 response and meteorology on air quality in New Zealand.

Publications

An investigation of the impacts of a successful COVID-19 response and meteorology on air quality in New Zealand.

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