NO 2 pollution decrease in big cities of Latin America during COVID-19 pandemic

Résumé

Abstract NO 2 is a mainly anthropogenic gas that affects population health and its exposure is associated with several respiratory diseases. Its tropospheric concentration is associated with vehicle emissions. During 2020, COVID-19 lockdowns have impeded population’s mobility, hence constructing an almost ideal situation to study their relationship with tropospheric NO 2 concentration. We used TROPOMI (TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument) satellite images, Google mobility reports and vehicule count in order to study these relationships in six big Latin American metropolitan areas: México DF, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Lima and Bogotá. In all of them, tropospheric NO 2 concentration decreased during 2020 compared to 2019, particularly during April 2020. Temperature differences alone could not explain the NO 2 concentration differences between February and April 2020. The daily vehicle count in Buenos Aires was a significantly important variable in order to explain NO 2 concentration variations (p < 0.001) and it could be replaced by the daily Google’s residential variation without significant information loss (p ≃ 1). This study strengthens previous research findings about NO 2 concentration reduction during COVID-19 lockdowns and shows the relationship between human mobility and air pollution in the particular context of Latin America big cities.

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