Lessons learnt for air pollution mitigation policies from the COVID-19 pandemic: The Italian perspective

Atmospheric Pollution Research

article

Massimo D'Isidoro¹  Ilaria D'Elia¹  Lina Vitali¹  Gino Briganti¹  Andrea Cappelletti¹  Antonio Piersanti¹  Sandro Finardi²  Giuseppe Calori²  Nicola Pepe²  Alessandro Di Giosa³  Andrea Bolignano³  Gabriele Zanini¹ 

[1]ENEA – Italian Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development

[2]Arianet s.r.l.

[3]ARPA-Lazio Environmental Protection Agency of the Lazio Region

关键词: Air pollution;    COVID-19;    Lockdown;    Air quality policies;    Air quality modelling;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.apr.2022.101620

学科分类：农业科学（综合）

来源: Dokuz Eylul Universitesi * Department of Environmental Engineering

【 摘 要 】

Policies to improve air quality need to be based on effective plans for reducing anthropogenic emissions. In 2020, the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic resulted in significant reductions of anthropogenic pollutant emissions, offering an unexpected opportunity to observe their consequences on ambient concentrations. Taking the national lockdown occurred in Italy between March and May 2020 as a case study, this work tries to infer if and what lessons may be learnt concerning the impact of emission reduction policies on air quality. Variations of NO 2 , O 3 , PM 10 and PM 2.5 concentrations were calculated from numerical model simulations obtained with business as usual and lockdown specific emissions. Both simulations were performed at national level with a horizontal resolution of 4 km, and at local level on the capital city Rome at 1 km resolution. Simulated concentrations showed a good agreement with in-situ observations, confirming the modelling systems capability to reproduce the effects of emission reductions on ambient concentration variations, which differ according to the individual air pollutant. We found a general reduction of pollutant concentrations except for ozone, that experienced an increase in Rome and in the other urban areas, and a decrease elsewhere. The obtained results suggest that acting on precursor emissions, even with sharp reductions like those experienced during the lockdown, may lead to significant, albeit complex, reduction patterns for secondary pollutant concentrations. Therefore, to be more effective, reduction measures should be carefully selected, involving more sectors than those related to mobility, such as residential and agriculture, and integrated on different scales.

【 授权许可】

CC BY