Air Quality Implications of COVID-19 in California

Shuai Pan, Jia Jung, Zitian Li, Xuewei Hou, Anirban Roy, Yunsoo Choi and H. Oliver Gao
Additional contact information
Shuai Pan: School of Atmospheric Physics, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology (NUIST), Nanjing 210044, China
Jia Jung: Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA
Zitian Li: Nanning Meteorological Service, Nanning 530000, China
Xuewei Hou: School of Atmospheric Physics, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology (NUIST), Nanjing 210044, China
Anirban Roy: Independent Researcher, Sacramento, CA 95814, USA
Yunsoo Choi: Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA
H. Oliver Gao: School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 17, 1-14

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected human health and the economy. The implementation of social distancing practices to combat the virus spread, however, has led to a notable improvement in air quality. This study compared the surface air quality monitoring data from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA)’s AirNow network during the period 20 March–5 May in 2020 to those in 2015–2019 from the Air Quality System (AQS) network over the state of California. The results indicated changes in fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) of −2.04 ± 1.57 μg m −3 and ozone of −3.07 ± 2.86 ppb. If the air quality improvements persist over a year, it could potentially lead to 3970–8900 prevented premature deaths annually (note: the estimates of prevented premature deaths have large uncertainties). Public transit demand showed dramatic declines (~80%). The pandemic provides an opportunity to exhibit how substantially human behavior could impact on air quality. To address both the pandemic and climate change issues, better strategies are needed to affect behavior, such as ensuring safer shared mobility, the higher adoption of telecommuting, automation in the freight sector, and cleaner energy transition.

Keywords: COVID-19; air quality; shared mobility; telecommuting; climate change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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