Published in Scientific Papers. Series E. Land Reclamation, Earth Observation & Surveying, Environmental Engineering, Vol. XIII
Written by Vasilica VASILE, Cristian PETCU, Alina DIMA, Mihaela ION
The pollution level of urban area is often high, mainly due to the traffic conditions that can lead to pollutant emissions such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and particulate matter (PM), negatively affecting inhabitant’s health. However, this level of traffic had a strong decrease, given the lockdown of the population imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, the present paper is a comparative analysis on air pollution level, before and during the two periods of lockdown. For this, the concentrations of specific traffic pollutants, suspended particles (PM2.5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2), were monitored. According to the obtained results, PM2.5 values have been lowering with 37.5% and 54.8 %, in trend with those from San Jose (45%) or Los Angeles (41%). Likewise, NO2 concentrations decreased with 62.3% in the first month and with 57.0% in the second month of the lockdown, similar with values recorded in London (40%) or Barcelona (70%). The analysis showed that air pollution can be reduced and considering the importance of heath for inhabitants, long-term solutions must be found.
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