Air quality variations during COVID-19 at select monitoring stations in Southwest Ohio
Deshui Xu, Mingming Lu*
There has been multiple studies and reports around the world on the air quality comparisons before and during COVID-19. We saw a decrease of criteria air pollutants, such as PM2.5 and NO2, in many metropolitan areas, which are likely due to traffic reduction during the pandemic. This may vary from site to site depending on local activities. In this study, data from multiple monitoring stations in the Southwest Ohio area were analyzed before and during COVID-19. The time series will be classified as the lock down period, i.e., March 23 to end of May in Ohio, and the re-opening period. These stations include a near road site, an urban site, a suburban site, and a few industrial sites. Traffic information is also included whenever possible. Preliminary results suggested that we saw significant reductions of PM2.5 and NO2 emissions at sites strongly impacted by traffic. The decrease was insignificant at industrial and landfill sites, which may be these essential sites remained active. More detailed data analysis will be performed and will be presented at the ACE 2021 conference. The implications of the reduction will also be analyzed.
