Quantifying the Impacts of COVID-19 Lockdown and Spring Festival on Air Quality over Yangtze River Delta Region
Zeeshan Javed,
Aimon Tanvir,
Yuhang Wang,
Ahmed Waqas,
Mingjie Xie,
Adnan Abbas,
Osama Sandhu,
Cheng Liu
Affiliations
Zeeshan Javed
Collaborative Innovation Center of Atmospheric Environment and Equipment Technology, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Environment Monitoring and Pollution Control, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China
Aimon Tanvir
Shanghai Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Particle Pollution and Prevention (LAP3), Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
Yuhang Wang
School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
Ahmed Waqas
Division of Science and Technology, Department of Zoology, Multan Campus, University of Education, Lahore, Punjab 60700, Pakistan
Mingjie Xie
Collaborative Innovation Center of Atmospheric Environment and Equipment Technology, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Environment Monitoring and Pollution Control, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China
Adnan Abbas
Land Science Research Center, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 210044, China
Key Laboratory of Precision Scientific Instrumentation of Anhui Higher Education Institutes, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
The emergence of the novel corona virus and the resulting lockdowns over various parts of the world have substantially impacted air quality due to reduced anthropogenic activity. The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of COVID-19 lockdown and Spring Festival on air quality of four major cities of Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region, including Shanghai, Nanjing, Hefei, and Hangzhou. In situ measurements were taken for nitrogen dioxide (NO2), particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone (O3). In situ measurements from 1 January to 25 April were taken two years prior to COVID-19 (2018–19), during COVID-19 lockdown (2020), and one year after the COVID-19 (2021). The results indicated that the concentration of NO2 and PM2.5 dropped considerably during the lockdown days compared to normal days while the O3 concentration showed an upsurge. The NO2 showed reduction of about 54% on average during lockdown level 1 in 2020 whereas, PM 2.5 showed reduction of about 36% through the YRD. A substantial drop was observed in concentration of NO2 during the Spring Festival holidays throughout the YRD from 2019 to 2021.
