The Effects of Pandemic Restrictions on Public Health—Improvements in Urban Air Quality

Gabriela Cioca and Raluca Andreea Nerişanu
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Gabriela Cioca: Preclinical Department, Faculty of Medicine, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, 550024 Sibiu, Romania
Raluca Andreea Nerişanu: Department of Finance and Accounting, Faculty of Economic Sciences, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, 550324 Sibiu, Romania

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 15, 1-23

Abstract: The present study aims to provide evidence on the effects of pandemic curtailment measures on public health, targeting the changes in breathable air quality, within urban areas. The analyzed period covers the full impact of lockdowns in Europe in 2020. We used everyday data for each analyzed pollutant, NO 2 , SO 2, CO, PM 2.5 and PM 10 , from urban monitoring stations that provided real-time concentrations (provided by Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, Environmental Protection Agency repository and European Environment Agency map services) and satellite data (provided by NASA Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2). In the present study, the urban air quality was computed using a composite index that was further analyzed in comparison with pandemic restrictions. Descriptive statistics, charts and maps were used to visualize the data that covered the analyzed countries. Our results show that air pollution was reduced by 12% after lockdowns in European urban areas, with a 0.76 correlation between air pollution and pandemic restrictions. All air pollutants registered significant drops.

Keywords: NO 2; SO 2; CO; PM; air pollution; pandemic; COVID-19; air quality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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