Air pollution perception in ten countries during the COVID-19 pandemic

Baowen Lou; Diego Maria Barbieri; Marco Passavanti; Cang Hui; Akshay Gupta; Inge Hoff; Daniela Antunes Lessa; Gaurav Sikka; Kevin Chang; Kevin Fang; Louisa Lam; Brij Maharaj; Navid Ghasemi; Yaning Qiao; Solomon Adomako; Ali Foroutan Mirhosseini; Bhaven Naik; Arunabha Banerjee; Fusong Wang; Andrew Tucker; Zhuangzhuang Liu; Kasun Wijayaratna; Sahra Naseri; Lei Yu; Hao Chen; Benan Shu; Shubham Goswami; Prince Peprah; Amir Hessami; Montasir Abbas; Nithin Agarwal

doi:10.1007/s13280-021-01574-2

Air pollution perception in ten countries during the COVID-19 pandemic

Ambio. 2022 Mar;51(3):531-545. doi: 10.1007/s13280-021-01574-2. Epub 2021 Jun 21.

Authors

Baowen Lou^{1

2}, Diego Maria Barbieri³, Marco Passavanti⁴, Cang Hui^{5

6}, Akshay Gupta⁷, Inge Hoff⁸, Daniela Antunes Lessa⁹, Gaurav Sikka¹⁰, Kevin Chang¹¹, Kevin Fang¹², Louisa Lam¹³, Brij Maharaj¹⁴, Navid Ghasemi¹⁵, Yaning Qiao¹⁶, Solomon Adomako¹⁷, Ali Foroutan Mirhosseini⁸, Bhaven Naik¹⁸, Arunabha Banerjee¹⁹, Fusong Wang²⁰, Andrew Tucker²¹, Zhuangzhuang Liu²², Kasun Wijayaratna²³, Sahra Naseri²⁴, Lei Yu²⁵, Hao Chen⁸, Benan Shu²⁶, Shubham Goswami²⁷, Prince Peprah²⁸, Amir Hessami²⁹, Montasir Abbas³⁰, Nithin Agarwal³¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Highway, Chang'an University, Nan Er Huan Road (Mid-section), Xi'an, 710064, Shaanxi, China. loubaowen@chd.edu.cn.
² Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Høgskoleringen 7A, 7491, Trondheim, Trøndelag, Norway. loubaowen@chd.edu.cn.
³ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Høgskoleringen 7A, 7491, Trondheim, Trøndelag, Norway. diego.barbieri@ntnu.no.
⁴ Italian Society of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT-Italy), Mannelli St. 139, 50132, Firenze, Toscana, Italy.
⁵ Centre for Invasion Biology, Department of Mathematical Sciences, Stellenbosch University, Matieland, 7602, South Africa.
⁶ Biodiversity Informatics Unit, African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Cape Town, 7945, South Africa.
⁷ Department of Civil Engineering, Transportation Engineering Group, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, 321-A&B, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, 247667, India.
⁸ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Høgskoleringen 7A, 7491, Trondheim, Trøndelag, Norway.
⁹ Department of Civil Engineering, Federal University of Ouro Preto, Rua Nove, Bauxita, Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais, 35400-000, Brazil.
¹⁰ Department of Geography, Lalit Narayan Mithila University, Darbhanga, Bihar, 846004, India.
¹¹ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Idaho, 875 Perimeter Drive, Mailstop 1022, Moscow, ID, 83844, USA.
¹² Department of Geography, Sonoma State University, Environment, and Planning, 1801 East Cotati Avenue, Rohnert Park, CA, 94928, USA.
¹³ School of Health, Federation University Australia, 72-100 Clyde Rd, Berwick, VIC, 3806, Australia.
¹⁴ Department of Geography, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Howard College City, Durban, 4000, KwaZulu, South Africa.
¹⁵ Department of Civil Chemical Environmental and Materials Engineering, University of Bologna, Viale del Risorgimento, 2, 40136, Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy.
¹⁶ School of Mechanics and Civil Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, Daxue Road 1, Xuzhou, 22116, Jiangsu, China.
¹⁷ Department of Engineering and Science, University of Agder, Jon Lilletuns vei 9, 4879, Grimstad, Agder, Norway.
¹⁸ Department of Civil Engineering/Russ College of Engineering & Technology, Ohio University, 28 W. Green Drive, Athens, OH, 45701, USA.
¹⁹ Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati, Assam, 781039, India.
²⁰ State Key Laboratory of Silicate Materials for Architectures, Wuhan University of Technology, Luoshi road 122, Wuhan, 430070, Hubei, China.
²¹ Connecticut Transportation Safety Research Center, University of Connecticut, 270 Middle Turnpike, Unit 5202 Longley Building, Storrs, CT, 06269, USA.
²² School of Highway, Chang'an University, Nan Er Huan Road (Mid-section), Xi'an, 710064, Shaanxi, China.
²³ School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Technology Sydney, 81, Broadway, Ultimo, NSW, 2007, Australia.
²⁴ School of Medicine, Bam University of Medical Sciences, Bam, 76615-336, Kerman, Iran.
²⁵ School of Civil Engineering, Sun Yat-Sen University, Xingang Xi Road 135, Guangzhou, 510275, Guangdong, China.
²⁶ Foshan Transportation Science and Technology Co. Ltd., Kuiqi Second Road 18, Foshan, 528000, Guangdong, China.
²⁷ Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, C V Raman Avenue, Bangalore, Karnataka, 560012, India.
²⁸ Department of Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales, John Goodsell Building, Kensington, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia.
²⁹ Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering, Texas A&M University - , Kingsville, 917 W. Ave B, Kingsville, TX, 78363, USA.
³⁰ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech, 301-D3 Patton Hall, Blacksburg, VA, 24061, USA.
³¹ Department of Civil & Coastal Engineering, University of Florida, 2100 NE Waldo Rd., Sta 106, Gainesville, FL, 32609, USA.

Abstract

As largely documented in the literature, the stark restrictions enforced worldwide in 2020 to curb the COVID-19 pandemic also curtailed the production of air pollutants to some extent. This study investigates the perception of the air pollution as assessed by individuals located in ten countries: Australia, Brazil, China, Ghana, India, Iran, Italy, Norway, South Africa and the USA. The perceptions towards air quality were evaluated by employing an online survey administered in May 2020. Participants (N = 9394) in the ten countries expressed their opinions according to a Likert-scale response. A reduction in pollutant concentration was clearly perceived, albeit to a different extent, by all populations. The survey participants located in India and Italy perceived the largest drop in the air pollution concentration; conversely, the smallest variation was perceived among Chinese and Norwegian respondents. Among all the demographic indicators considered, only gender proved to be statistically significant.

Keywords: Air quality; COVID-19 pandemic; Environmental pollution; Pollution perception; Psychometric perception.

MeSH terms

Air Pollutants* / analysis
Air Pollution* / analysis
Air Pollution* / statistics & numerical data
COVID-19*
Humans
Pandemics
Particulate Matter / analysis
Perception
SARS-CoV-2

Substances

Air Pollutants
Particulate Matter