Air quality changes during the COVID-19 lockdown over the Yangtze River Delta Region: An insight into the impact of human activity pattern changes on air pollution variation.

ABSTRACT: The outbreak of COVID-19 has spreaded rapidly across the world. To control the rapid dispersion of the virus, China has imposed national lockdown policies to practise social distancing. This has led to reduced human activities and hence primary air pollutant emissions, which caused improvement of air quality as a side-product. To investigate the air quality changes during the COVID-19 lockdown over the YRD Region, we apply the WRF-CAMx modelling system together with monitoring data to investigate the impact of human activity pattern changes on air quality. Results show that human activities were lowered significantly during the period: industrial operations, VKT, constructions in operation, etc. were significantly reduced, leading to lowered SO₂, NO_x, PM_2.5

SUBMITTER: Li L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7211667 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature