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

Matias I Volke; Rodrigo Abarca-Del-Rio; Claudia Ulloa-Tesser

doi:10.1016/j.uclim.2023.101412

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

Urban Clim. 2023 Mar:48:101412. doi: 10.1016/j.uclim.2023.101412. Epub 2023 Jan 6.

Authors

Matias I Volke¹, Rodrigo Abarca-Del-Rio², Claudia Ulloa-Tesser³

Affiliations

¹ Energy Doctoral Program, Faculty of Engineering, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción 4030000, Chile.
² Department of Geophysics, Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, University of Concepcion, Concepcion, Chile.
³ Environmental Engineering Department, Faculty of Environmental Science and EULA Center, Universidad de Concepción, Chile.

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