Abstract
During the large-scale outbreak of COVID-19 in China, the Chinese government adopted multiple measures to prevent the epidemic. The consequence was that a sudden variation in residents’ travel behavior took place. In order to better evaluate the temporal distribution of air pollution, and to effectively explore the influence of human activities on air quality, especially under the special situation, this study was conducted based on the real data from a case city in China from this new perspective. Two case scenarios were constructed, in which the research before the changes of residents’ travel behavior was taken as case one, and the research after the changes in residents’ travel behavior as case two. The hourly real-time concentrations of PM2.5, PM10, SO2, NO2, CO and O3 that have passed the augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF) test were employed as a data source. A series of detailed studies have been carried out using the correlation method, entropy weight method and the Air Quality Index (AQI) calculation method. Additionally, the research found that the decrease rate of NO2 concentration is 61.05%, and the decrease rate of PM10 concentration is 53.68%. On the contrary, the average concentration of O3 has increased significantly, and its growth rate has reached to 9.82%. Although the air quality in the first week with fewer travels was in the excellent category, and chief pollutant (CP), as well as excessive pollutant (EP), were not found, as traffic volume increased, it became worse in the second and third weeks. In addition to that, special attention should still be paid to the development trend of O3, as its average hourly concentration has increased. The findings of this study will have some guiding significance for the study of air pollution prevention, cleaner production, and indoor environmental safety issues, especially for the study of abnormal traffic environments where residents’ travel behaviors have changed significantly.
Highlights
Outdoor and indoor air pollution poses a serious threat to the sustainable development of society and the economy, causing a broad concern for public health and cleaner production [1,2]
In order to better evaluate the temporal distribution of air pollution under the noticeable variation of resident travel behaviors, and to effectively explore the influence of human travel activities on air pollution, such as under the above mentioned abnormal human activities which were caused by COVID-19, this study was carried out from this new perspective, and based on real data from a case city in China
Through the above comparative analysis, it can be obtained that the variation in residents’ travel behavior has brought down the concentrations of PM2.5 and PM10, and it has not changed the characteristics of the bimodal distribution of their concentrations
Summary
Outdoor and indoor air pollution poses a serious threat to the sustainable development of society and the economy, causing a broad concern for public health and cleaner production [1,2]. The result of appropriate government policies is that, during the COVID-19 epidemic prevention and control period, human activities, especially the travel behavior of residents, have changed dramatically. During this period, the number of residents traveling by cars and public transit dropped drastically. In order to better evaluate the temporal distribution of air pollution under the noticeable variation of resident travel behaviors, and to effectively explore the influence of human travel activities on air pollution, such as under the above mentioned abnormal human activities which were caused by COVID-19, this study was carried out from this new perspective, and based on real data from a case city in China. The correlation relationship between AQI and six representative pollutants was analyzed, the temporal distribution characteristics of pollutant concentration of six representative pollutants in both cases were carried out, the comparison of entropy weights of their pollutant concentrations in both cases was conducted, and the impact of air pollution on human health was evaluated based on the AQI calculation formula
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