IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v14y2022i18p11531-d914757.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Air Quality Changes during the COVID-19 Lockdown in an Industrial City in North China: Post-Pandemic Proposals for Air Quality Improvement

Author

Listed:
  • Hongya Niu

    (School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hebei University of Engineering, Handan 056038, China)

  • Chongchong Zhang

    (School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hebei University of Engineering, Handan 056038, China)

  • Wei Hu

    (Institute of Surface-Earth System Science, School of Earth System Science, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China)

  • Tafeng Hu

    (Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi’an 710061, China)

  • Chunmiao Wu

    (School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hebei University of Engineering, Handan 056038, China)

  • Sihao Hu

    (School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hebei University of Engineering, Handan 056038, China)

  • Luis F. O. Silva

    (Department of Civil and Environmental, Universidad de la Costa, Calle 58 #55-66, Barranquilla 080002, Atlántico, Colombia)

  • Nana Gao

    (School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hebei University of Engineering, Handan 056038, China)

  • Xiaolei Bao

    (Hebei Chemical & Pharmaceutical College, Shijiazhuang 050026, China)

  • Jingsen Fan

    (School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hebei University of Engineering, Handan 056038, China)

Abstract

To better understand the changes in air pollutants in an industrial city, Handan, North China, during the COVID-19 lockdown period, the air quality and meteorological conditions were recorded from 1 January to 3 March 2020 and the corresponding period in 2019. Compared to the corresponding period in 2019, the largest reduction in PM 2.5–10 , PM 2.5 , NO 2 and CO occurred during the COVID-19 lockdown period. PM 2.5–10 displayed the highest reduction (66.6%), followed by NO 2 (58.4%) and PM 2.5 (50.1%), while O 3 increased by 13.9%. Similarly, compared with the pre-COVID-19 period, NO 2 significantly decreased by 66.1% during the COVID-19 lockdown, followed by PM 2.5–10 (45.9%) and PM 2.5 (42.4%), while O 3 increased significantly (126%). Among the different functional areas, PM 2.5 and PM 2.5–10 dropped the most in the commercial area during the COVID-19 lockdown. NO 2 and SO 2 decreased the most in the traffic and residential areas, respectively, while NO 2 increased only in the township and SO 2 increased the most in the industrial area. O 3 increased in all functional areas to different extents. Potential source contribution function analysis indicated that not only the local air pollution lessened, but also long-distance or inter-regional transport contributed much less to heavy pollution during the lockdown period. These results indicate that the COVID-19 lockdown measures led to significantly reduced PM and NO 2 but increased O 3 , highlighting the importance of the synergetic control of PM 2.5 and O 3 , as well as regional joint prevention and the control of air pollution. Moreover, it is necessary to formulate air pollution control measures according to functional areas on a city scale.

Suggested Citation

  • Hongya Niu & Chongchong Zhang & Wei Hu & Tafeng Hu & Chunmiao Wu & Sihao Hu & Luis F. O. Silva & Nana Gao & Xiaolei Bao & Jingsen Fan, 2022. "Air Quality Changes during the COVID-19 Lockdown in an Industrial City in North China: Post-Pandemic Proposals for Air Quality Improvement," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(18), pages 1-19, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:18:p:11531-:d:914757
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/18/11531/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/18/11531/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Qiang Zhang & Xujia Jiang & Dan Tong & Steven J. Davis & Hongyan Zhao & Guannan Geng & Tong Feng & Bo Zheng & Zifeng Lu & David G. Streets & Ruijing Ni & Michael Brauer & Aaron van Donkelaar & Randall, 2017. "Transboundary health impacts of transported global air pollution and international trade," Nature, Nature, vol. 543(7647), pages 705-709, March.
    2. Zeng, Jingjing & Liu, Ting & Feiock, Richard & Li, Fei, 2019. "The impacts of China's provincial energy policies on major air pollutants: A spatial econometric analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 392-403.
    3. Xiangyu Zheng & Bin Guo & Jing He & Song Xi Chen, 2021. "Effects of corona virus disease‐19 control measures on air quality in North China," Environmetrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(2), March.
    4. J. Lelieveld & J. S. Evans & M. Fnais & D. Giannadaki & A. Pozzer, 2015. "The contribution of outdoor air pollution sources to premature mortality on a global scale," Nature, Nature, vol. 525(7569), pages 367-371, September.
    5. Zhi Qiao & Feng Wu & Xinliang Xu & Jin Yang & Luo Liu, 2019. "Mechanism of Spatiotemporal Air Quality Response to Meteorological Parameters: A National-Scale Analysis in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(14), pages 1-16, July.
    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. Mohsen Maghrebi & Ali Danandeh Mehr & Seyed Mohsen Karrabi & Mojtaba Sadegh & Sadegh Partani & Behzad Ghiasi & Vahid Nourani, 2022. "Spatiotemporal Variations of Air Pollution during the COVID-19 Pandemic across Tehran, Iran: Commonalities with and Differences from Global Trends," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-23, December.

    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. Ying Su & Chunyan Lu & Xiaoqing Lin & Lianxiu Zhong & Yibin Gao & Yifan Lei, 2020. "Analysis of Spatio-temporal Characteristics and Driving Forces of Air Quality in the Northern Coastal Comprehensive Economic Zone, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-23, January.
    2. Rong Ma & Ke Li & Yixin Guo & Bo Zhang & Xueli Zhao & Soeren Linder & ChengHe Guan & Guoqian Chen & Yujie Gan & Jing Meng, 2021. "Mitigation potential of global ammonia emissions and related health impacts in the trade network," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-13, December.
    3. Du, Weijian & Li, Mengjie, 2023. "Opening the black box of environmental governance: Environmental target constraints and industrial firm pollution reduction," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 283(C).
    4. Mohammed Alamoudi & Osman Taylan & Behrooz Keshtegar & Mona Abusurrah & Mohammed Balubaid, 2022. "Modeling Sulphur Dioxide (SO 2 ) Quality Levels of Jeddah City Using Machine Learning Approaches with Meteorological and Chemical Factors," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-21, December.
    5. Chen, Jiandong & Huang, Shasha & Shen, Zhiyang & Song, Malin & Zhu, Zunhong, 2022. "Impact of sulfur dioxide emissions trading pilot scheme on pollution emissions intensity: A study based on the synthetic control method," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    6. Yang, Siyuan & Fang, Delin & Chen, Bin, 2019. "Human health impact and economic effect for PM2.5 exposure in typical cities," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 249(C), pages 316-325.
    7. Ying Zhang & Song Xi Chen & Le Bao, 2023. "Air pollution estimation under air stagnation—A case study of Beijing," Environmetrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(6), September.
    8. Sicheng Wang & Pingjun Sun & Feng Sun & Shengnan Jiang & Zhaomin Zhang & Guoen Wei, 2021. "The Direct and Spillover Effect of Multi-Dimensional Urbanization on PM 2.5 Concentrations: A Case Study from the Chengdu-Chongqing Urban Agglomeration in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(20), pages 1-19, October.
    9. Keisuke Nansai & Susumu Tohno & Satoru Chatani & Keiichiro Kanemoto & Shigemi Kagawa & Yasushi Kondo & Wataru Takayanagi & Manfred Lenzen, 2021. "Consumption in the G20 nations causes particulate air pollution resulting in two million premature deaths annually," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-12, December.
    10. Zhiyuan Wang & Xiaoyi Shi & Chunhua Pan & Sisi Wang, 2021. "Spatial and Temporal Characteristics of Environmental Air Quality and Its Relationship with Seasonal Climatic Conditions in Eastern China during 2015–2018," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(9), pages 1-17, April.
    11. Guoen Wei & Pingjun Sun & Shengnan Jiang & Yang Shen & Binglin Liu & Zhenke Zhang & Xiao Ouyang, 2021. "The Driving Influence of Multi-Dimensional Urbanization on PM 2.5 Concentrations in Africa: New Evidence from Multi-Source Remote Sensing Data, 2000–2018," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(17), pages 1-23, September.
    12. Lanzi, Elisa & Dellink, Rob & Chateau, Jean, 2018. "The sectoral and regional economic consequences of outdoor air pollution to 2060," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 89-113.
    13. Héctor Jorquera & Ana María Villalobos, 2020. "Combining Cluster Analysis of Air Pollution and Meteorological Data with Receptor Model Results for Ambient PM 2.5 and PM 10," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(22), pages 1-25, November.
    14. Ellen Banzhaf & Sally Anderson & Gwendoline Grandin & Richard Hardiman & Anne Jensen & Laurence Jones & Julius Knopp & Gregor Levin & Duncan Russel & Wanben Wu & Jun Yang & Marianne Zandersen, 2022. "Urban-Rural Dependencies and Opportunities to Design Nature-Based Solutions for Resilience in Europe and China," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-25, March.
    15. Rogers Kanee & Precious Ede & Omosivie Maduka & Golden Owhonda & Eric Aigbogun & Khalaf F. Alsharif & Ahmed H. Qasem & Shadi S. Alkhayyat & Gaber El-Saber Batiha, 2021. "Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Levels in Wistar Rats Exposed to Ambient Air of Port Harcourt, Nigeria: An Indicator for Tissue Toxicity," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(11), pages 1-21, May.
    16. Hongjun Yu & Jiali Cheng & Shelby Paige Gordon & Ruopeng An & Miao Yu & Xiaodan Chen & Qingli Yue & Jun Qiu, 2018. "Impact of Air Pollution on Sedentary Behavior: A Cohort Study of Freshmen at a University in Beijing, China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-12, December.
    17. Hayat Khan & Liu Weili & Itbar Khan, 2022. "Environmental innovation, trade openness and quality institutions: an integrated investigation about environmental sustainability," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 3832-3862, March.
    18. Stefani Kulebanova & Jana Prodanova & Aleksandra Dedinec & Trifce Sandev & Desheng Wu & Ljupco Kocarev, 2024. "Media Sentiment on Air Pollution: Seasonal Trends in Relation to PM10 Levels," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(15), pages 1-20, July.
    19. Abhijit Chakraborty & Tobias Reisch & Christian Diem & Pablo Astudillo-Estévez & Stefan Thurner, 2024. "Inequality in economic shock exposures across the global firm-level supply network," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-8, December.
    20. Feng, Xiangdong & Liu, Shanjian & Yue, Kang & Wei, Heng & Bi, Dongmei & Zhao, Wenjing, 2023. "Insight into the promotional effect of Mn-modified nitrogenous biochar on the NH3-SCR denitrification activity at low temperatures," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 285(C).

    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:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:18:p:11531-:d:914757. 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.