Abstract
Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is one of the main air quality pollutants of concern in many urban and industrial areas worldwide, and particularly in the European region, where in 2017 almost 20 countries exceeded the NO2 annual limit values imposed by the European Commission Directive 2008/50/EC (EEA, 2019). NO2 pollution monitoring and regulation is a necessary task to help decision makers to search for a sustainable solution for environmental quality and population health status improvement. In this study, we propose a comparative analysis of the tropospheric NO2 column spatial configuration over Europe between similar periods in 2019 and 2020, based on the ESA Copernicus Sentinel-5P products. The results highlight the NO2 pollution dynamics over the abrupt transition from a normal condition situation to the COVID-19 outbreak context, characterized by a short-time decrease of traffic intensities and industrial activities, revealing remarkable tropospheric NO2 column number density decreases even of 85% in some of the European big cities. The validation approach of the satellite-derived data, based on a cross-correlation analysis with independent data from ground-based observations, provided encouraging values of the correlation coefficients (R2), ranging between 0.5 and 0.75 in different locations. The remarkable decrease of NO2 pollution over Europe during the COVID-19 lockdown is highlighted by S-5P products and confirmed by the Industrial Production Index and air traffic volumes.
Highlights
Atmospheric pollution is one of the most important environmental issues of the industrialized developed and developing countries around the world
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 91% of the world population lives in polluted places, breathing air containing high levels of pollutants, and 7 million deaths occur every year as a result of exposure to ambient air pollution and smoke from fuels [5]
Our objective is to build a comparative analysis of the NO2 pollutant spatial configuration, based on Sentinel-5P data products, on European, regional, and local levels between similar months from 2019 and 2020, corresponding to the abrupt transition from a normal condition situation to the COVID-19 outbreak context, characterized by a short-time period decrease of traffic intensities and a limitation of industrial power consumption generated by fossil fuel burning
Summary
Atmospheric pollution is one of the most important environmental issues of the industrialized developed and developing countries around the world. Even if the emission sources are defined by all combustion engine processes, a recent study from the cities of Madrid and Barcelona revealed the fact that 65% of the NO emissions are generated by vehicle traffic [11], and the rest of the 35% refers to other sources, including the industrial sector, power plant activity, and heating In this respect, NO2 pollution monitoring and its regulation are necessary tasks because of (1) the potential of NO2 gas to produce secondary pollutants [12] such as peroxyacyl nitrates (PANs), nitric acid, and ozone (O3), which contribute to the formation of smog, acid rain, and the greenhouse effect, respectively; (2) the visibility reduction in urban areas; and (3) the negative effects on human health. Li et al [13] explained in a synthetic formula the key role of NO2 pollution studied in urban and industrial regions as well as for the national and global studies
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