Abstract
The impact of the pandemic caused by COVID-19 on urban pollution in our cities is a proven fact, although its mechanisms are not known in great detail. The change in urban mobility patterns due to the restrictions imposed on the population during lockdown is a phenomenon that can be parameterized and studied from the perspective of spatial analysis. This study proposes an analysis of the guiding parameters of these changes from the perspective of spatial analysis. To do so, the case study of the city of Cartagena, a medium-sized city in Spain, has been analyzed throughout the period of mobility restrictions due to COVID-19. By means of a geostatistical analysis, changes in urban mobility patterns and the modal distribution of transport have been correlated with the evolution of environmental air quality indicators in the city. The results show that despite the positive effect of the pandemic in its beginnings on the environmental impact of urban mobility, the changes generated in the behavior patterns of current mobility users favor the most polluting modes of travel in cities.
Highlights
Air pollution in cities and rural areas around the world causes seven million premature deaths each year, with more than 400,000 in Europe alone [1,2]
It is true that urban pollution is due to issues arising from mobility and transport [5], as it is linked to other activities, such as industry or the evolution of climatological variables, as has been detected in some cities [6,7]
Numerical values related to the change of urban mobility due to COVID-19 in the city of Cartagena are presented from an aggregate approach
Summary
Air pollution in cities and rural areas around the world causes seven million premature deaths each year, with more than 400,000 in Europe alone [1,2]. Most experts agree that pollution from urban mobility is currently the greatest challenge in relation to the future of air quality in cities [9,10] and its analysis through the indicator PM 2.5 the most effective way for its investigation [11,12,13] In this context, it is important to bear in mind that we are facing a phenomenon of growing importance for some time in large cities around the world [14], which in the case of Europe is beginning to spread to medium-sized cities [15,16,17]. This argument is clearly supported by the seasonality in the values of the air quality measurement stations in many cities, in which periodic hourly and weekly behavior is reproduced with patterns very similar to those of traffic congestion [18]
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