Elsevier

Urban Climate

Volume 48, March 2023, 101412
Urban Climate

Impact of mobility restrictions on NO2 concentrations in key Latin American cities during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2023.101412Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Sentinel-5P observations reveal Covid-19 countermeasures contribute to NO2 reduction.

  • 12 Latin American cities reported NO2 decreases >15% in at least one month.

  • Cities with populations over 5 million saw a 26.5% drop in NO2, smaller saw 12.6%.

  • 10 cities show a significant relationship between mobility and NO2 concentrations.

  • Climate variability had no statistically significant influence on the NO2 decrease.

Abstract

Between March and June 2020, activity in the major cities of Latin America declined due to containment efforts implemented by local governments to avoid the rapid spread of COVID-19. Our study compared 2020 with the previous year and demonstrated a considerable drop in tropospheric NO2 levels obtained by the SENTINEL 5P satellite in major Latin American cities. Lima (47.5%), Santiago (36.1%), São Paulo (27%), Rio de Janeiro (23%), Quito (18.6%), Bogota (17.5%), Buenos Aires (16.6%), Guayaquil (15.3%), Medellin (14.2%), La Paz (9.5%), Belo Horizonte (7.8%), Mexico (7.6%) and Brasilia (5.9%) registered statistically significant decreases in NO2 concentrations during the study period. In addition, we analyzed mobility data from Google and Apple reports as well as meteorological information from atmospheric reanalysis data along with satellite fields between 2011 and 2020, and performed a refined multivariate analysis (non-negative matrix approximation) to show that this decrease was associated with a reduction in population mobility rather than meteorological factors. Our findings corroborate the argument that confinement scenarios may indicate how air pollutant concentrations can be effectively reduced and managed.

Keywords

COVID-19
NO2
Latin America
Mobility restriction
Air quality
Remote sensing

Data availability

Data will be made available on request.

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