Anthropogenic Drivers of Hourly Air Pollutant Change in an Urban Environment during 2019–2021—A Case Study in Wuhan

Wuhan experienced a noticeable enhancement in air quality from January to April 2020 due to the epidemic lockdown. The improvement was a combined result of anthropogenic emission reduction and meteorological variability. Environmental policymakers are often concerned about the impact of industrial production and human activities on improvements in environmental sustainability. This study split and quantified the impact of anthropogenic emissions on the pollution level changes of six major air pollutants (CO, SO 2 , NO 2 , O 3 , PM 10 , and PM 2.5 ) for the first half year of 2019 to 2021 in Wuhan with an improved meteorological normalization algorithm. The results show sharp decreases in anthropogenic pollutant loads during 2020, except for O 3 , with the ranking of NO 2 > PM 10 > SO 2 > CO > PM 2.5 . The decrease in NO 2 emissions caused by humans was more than 50% compared to 2019. The low NO 2 led to a decrease in O 3 consumption, resulting in high O 3 concentrations from February to April 2020 during the city lockdown. Moreover, except O 3 , the impact of anthropogenic and weather influences on air pollution exhibited opposing effects; that is, meteorology tended to aggravate pollution, while human intervention was conducive to improving air quality, and human factors played the dominant role. Of all six pollutants, O 3 is the one that is relatively least subject to anthropogenic emissions. Although concentrations of SO 2 , NO 2 , PM 10 , and PM 2.5 rebounded in 2021, none of them were able to return to their pre-lockdown levels, suggesting the epidemic’s continuous inhibition of people’s activities. Compared with 2019 and 2021, the atmospheric oxidation capacity and secondary aerosol formation showed an overall decreasing trend during 2020. This study provides a reference for assessing the effectiveness of anthropogenic emission reduction policies.