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Direct observations of CO₂ emission reductions due to COVID-19 lockdown across European urban districts.

ABSTRACT: The measures taken to contain the spread of COVID-19 in 2020 included restrictions of people's mobility and reductions in economic activities. These drastic changes in daily life, enforced through national lockdowns, led to abrupt reductions of anthropogenic CO₂ emissions in urbanized areas all over the world. To examine the effect of social restrictions on local emissions of CO₂, we analysed district level CO₂ fluxes measured by the eddy-covariance technique from 13 stations in 11 European cities. The data span several years before the pandemic until October 2020 (six months after the pandemic began in Europe). All sites showed a reduction in CO₂ emissions during the national lockdowns. The magnitude of these reductions varies in time and space, from city to city as well as between different areas of the same city. We found that, during the first lockdowns, urban CO₂ emissions were cut with respect to the same period in previous years by 5% to 87% across the analysed districts, mainly as a result of limitations on mobility. However, as the restrictions were lifted in the following months, emissions quickly rebounded to their pre-COVID levels in the majority of sites.

SUBMITTER: Nicolini G

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8934179 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Direct observations of CO2 emission reductions due to COVID-19 lockdown across European urban districts.

Nicolini Giacomo G Antoniella Gabriele G Carotenuto Federico F Christen Andreas A Ciais Philippe P Feigenwinter Christian C Gioli Beniamino B Stagakis Stavros S Velasco Erik E Vogt Roland R Ward Helen C HC Barlow Janet J Chrysoulakis Nektarios N Duce Pierpaolo P Graus Martin M Helfter Carole C Heusinkveld Bert B Järvi Leena L Karl Thomas T Marras Serena S Masson Valéry V Matthews Bradley B Meier Fred F Nemitz Eiko E Sabbatini Simone S Scherer Dieter D Schume Helmut H Sirca Costantino C Steeneveld Gert-Jan GJ Vagnoli Carolina C Wang Yilong Y Zaldei Alessandro A Zheng Bo B Papale Dario D

The Science of the total environment 20220319

The measures taken to contain the spread of COVID-19 in 2020 included restrictions of people's mobility and reductions in economic activities. These drastic changes in daily life, enforced through national lockdowns, led to abrupt reductions of anthropogenic CO2 emissions in urbanized areas all over the world. To examine the effect of social restrictions on local emissions of CO2, we analysed district level CO2 fluxes measured by the eddy-covariance technique fro ...[more]

PMID: 35318060

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Project description:During the Covid-19 outbreak, strict lockdown measures led to notable reductions in transportation-related emissions and significantly altered atmospheric pollution characteristics in urban and suburban areas. In this work, we compare comprehensive online measurements of PM2.5 major components and organic molecular markers in a suburban location in Shanghai, China before lockdown (Dec. 28, 2019 to Jan. 23, 2020) and during lockdown (Jan. 24 to Feb. 9, 2020). The NOx levels declined sharply by 59% from 44 to 18 ppb during the lockdown, while O3 rose two times higher to 42 ppb. The PM2.5 level dropped from 64 to 49 μg m-3 (-24%). The major components all showed reductions, with the reduction of nitrate most prominent at -58%, followed by organics at -19%, and sulfate at -17%. Positive matrix factorization analysis identifies fourteen source factors, including nine primary sources and five secondary sources. The secondary sources consist of sulfate-rich factor, nitrate-rich factor, and three secondary organic aerosol (SOA) factors, with SOA_I being anthropogenic SOA, SOA_II associated with later generation products of organic oxidation, and SOA_III being biogenic SOA. The combined secondary sources contributed to 69% and 63% (40 and 22 μg m-3) of PM2.5 before and during lockdown, respectively, among which the reductions in the nitrate-rich (-55%) factor was the most prominent. Among primary sources, large reductions (>80%) were observed in contributions from industrial, cooking, and vehicle emissions. Unlike some studies reporting that the restriction during the Covid-19 resulted in enhanced secondary sulfate and SOA formation, we observed decreases in both secondary inorganic and SOA formation despite the overall elevated oxidizing capacity in the suburban site. Our results indicate that the formation change in secondary inorganic and organic compounds in response to substantial reductions in urban primary precursors are different for urban and suburban environments.

Dataset Information

Direct observations of CO₂ emission reductions due to COVID-19 lockdown across European urban districts.

Publications

Direct observations of CO<sub>2</sub> emission reductions due to COVID-19 lockdown across European urban districts.

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