IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v13y2020i22p6044-d447470.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Analyzing COVID-19 Impacts on Vehicle Travels and Daily Nitrogen Dioxide (NO 2 ) Levels among Florida Counties

Author

Listed:
  • Alican Karaer

    (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32310, USA)

  • Nozhan Balafkan

    (StormGeo Inc., 5011 Bergen, Norway)

  • Michele Gazzea

    (Department of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, 5063 Bergen, Norway)

  • Reza Arghandeh

    (Department of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, 5063 Bergen, Norway)

  • Eren Erman Ozguven

    (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32310, USA)

Abstract

The COVID-19 outbreak and ensuing social distancing behaviors resulted in substantial reduction on traffic, making this a unique experiment on observing the air quality. Such an experiment is also supplemental to the smart city concept as it can help to identify whether there is a delay on air quality improvement during or after a sharp decline on traffic and to determine what, if any, factors are contributing to that time lag. As such, this study investigates the immediate impacts of COVID-19 causing abrupt declines on traffic and NO 2 concentration in all Florida Counties through March 2020. Daily tropospheric NO 2 concentrations were extracted from the Sentinel-5 Precursor satellite and vehicle mile traveled (VMT) estimates were acquired from cell phone mobility records. It is observed that overall impacts of the COVID-19 response in Florida have started in the first half of the March 2020, two weeks earlier than the official stay-at-home orders, and resulted in 54.07% and 59.68% decrease by the end of the month on NO 2 and VMT, respectively. Further, a cross-correlation based dependency analysis was conducted to analyze the similarities and associated time lag between 7-day moving averages of VMT and NO 2 concentrations of the 67 counties. Although such reduction is unprecedented for both data sets, results indicate a strong correlation and this correlation increases with the identification of a time lag between VMT and NO 2 concentration. Majority of the counties have no time lag between VMT and NO 2 concentration; however, a cluster of South Florida counties presents earlier decrease on NO 2 concentration compare to VMT, which indicates that the air quality improvements in those counties are not traffic related. Investigation on the socioeconomic factors indicates that population density and income level have no significant impact on the time lag between traffic and air quality improvements in light of COVID-19.

Suggested Citation

  • Alican Karaer & Nozhan Balafkan & Michele Gazzea & Reza Arghandeh & Eren Erman Ozguven, 2020. "Analyzing COVID-19 Impacts on Vehicle Travels and Daily Nitrogen Dioxide (NO 2 ) Levels among Florida Counties," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-17, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:22:p:6044-:d:447470
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/22/6044/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/22/6044/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Steve Cicala & Stephen P. Holland & Erin T. Mansur & Nicholas Z. Muller & Andrew J. Yates, 2020. "Expected Health Effects of Reduced Air Pollution from COVID-19 Social Distancing," NBER Working Papers 27135, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Editorial, 2020. "Covid-19 and Climate Change," Journal, Review of Agrarian Studies, vol. 10(1), pages 5-6, January-J.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Truong, Dothang, 2021. "Estimating the impact of COVID-19 on air travel in the medium and long term using neural network and Monte Carlo simulation," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    2. Kishan Mahmud & Dinesh Panday & Anaas Mergoum & Ali Missaoui, 2021. "Nitrogen Losses and Potential Mitigation Strategies for a Sustainable Agroecosystem," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-23, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andrea Baranzini & Stefano Carattini & Linda Tesauro, 2021. "Designing Effective and Acceptable Road Pricing Schemes: Evidence from the Geneva Congestion Charge," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 79(3), pages 417-482, July.
    2. Brodeur, Abel & Cook, Nikolai & Wright, Taylor, 2021. "On the effects of COVID-19 safer-at-home policies on social distancing, car crashes and pollution," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    3. Lee, Munseob & Finerman, Rachel, 2021. "COVID-19, commuting flows, and air quality," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    4. Robert J. R. Elliott & Ingmar Schumacher & Cees Withagen, 2020. "Suggestions for a Covid-19 Post-Pandemic Research Agenda in Environmental Economics," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 76(4), pages 1187-1213, August.
    5. Patrycja Klusak & Matthew Agarwala & Matt Burke & Moritz Kraemer & Kamiar Mohaddes, 2023. "Rising Temperatures, Falling Ratings: The Effect of Climate Change on Sovereign Creditworthiness," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(12), pages 7468-7491, December.
    6. Francine Mestrum, 2020. "Universal Social Protection and Health Care as a Social Common," Development, Palgrave Macmillan;Society for International Deveopment, vol. 63(2), pages 238-243, December.
    7. David Klenert & Franziska Funke & Linus Mattauch & Brian O’Callaghan, 2020. "Five Lessons from COVID-19 for Advancing Climate Change Mitigation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 76(4), pages 751-778, August.
    8. Susan Aaronson, 2021. "Can Trade Agreements Solve the Wicked Problem of Disinformation," Working Papers 2021-12, The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy.
    9. Nguyen, Minh-Hoang & Vuong, Quan-Hoang, 2020. "The third finding concerning a missing cultural value: a bibliometric analysis using the Web of Science," OSF Preprints jbcx3, Center for Open Science.
    10. Zeynep Clulow & Michele Ferguson & Peta Ashworth & David Reiner, 2021. "Political ideology and public views of the energy transition in Australia and the UK," Working Papers EPRG2106, Energy Policy Research Group, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
    11. Nestor Goicoechea & Luis María Abadie, 2021. "Optimal Slow Steaming Speed for Container Ships under the EU Emission Trading System," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-25, November.
    12. Timothy J. Garrett & Matheus R. Grasselli & Stephen Keen, 2020. "Past production constrains current energy demands: persistent scaling in global energy consumption and implications for climate change mitigation," Papers 2006.03718, arXiv.org.
    13. Luo, Shihua & Hu, Weihao & Liu, Wen & Liu, Zhou & Huang, Qi & Chen, Zhe, 2022. "Flexibility enhancement measures under the COVID-19 pandemic – A preliminary comparative analysis in Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sichuan of China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 239(PC).
    14. Agarwala, Matthew & Burke, Matt & Klusak, Patrycja & Mohaddes, Kamiar & Volz, Ulrich & Zenghelis, Dimitri, 2021. "Climate Change And Fiscal Sustainability: Risks And Opportunities," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 258, pages 28-46, November.
    15. Dang, Hai-Anh H. & Trinh, Trong-Anh, 2020. "Does the COVID-19 Pandemic Improve Global Air Quality? New Cross-national Evidence on Its Unintended Consequences," GLO Discussion Paper Series 606, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    16. Zhu Liu & Zhu Deng & Philippe Ciais & Jianguang Tan & Biqing Zhu & Steven J. Davis & Robbie Andrew & Olivier Boucher & Simon Ben Arous & Pep Canadel & Xinyu Dou & Pierre Friedlingstein & Pierre Gentin, 2021. "Global Daily CO$_2$ emissions for the year 2020," Papers 2103.02526, arXiv.org.
    17. Abel Brodeur & David Gray & Anik Islam & Suraiya Bhuiyan, 2021. "A literature review of the economics of COVID‐19," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 1007-1044, September.
    18. Souknilanh Keola & Kazunobu Hayakawa, 2021. "Do Lockdown Policies Reduce Economic and Social Activities? Evidence from NO2 Emissions," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 59(2), pages 178-205, June.
    19. Lawal, Olanrewaju & Emeka, Anyiam, 2021. "Spatial Structure And Climatic Associations With Covid-19 Cases Across The Globe," Journal of Tourism, Sustainability and Well-being, Cinturs - Research Centre for Tourism, Sustainability and Well-being, University of Algarve, vol. 9(2), pages 75-90.
    20. Chaofeng Tang & Kentaka Aruga, 2021. "Effects of the 2008 Financial Crisis and COVID-19 Pandemic on the Dynamic Relationship between the Chinese and International Fossil Fuel Markets," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-11, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:22:p:6044-:d:447470. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.