Assessing the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on air pollutant emissions in cities: the case of europe’s cleanest and most polluted countries

Abstract

In this paper, we compare emissions of major air polluters from 20 March to 20 April 2020 to the same period in 2019. Our study area covers major cities in Europe’s cleanest and most polluted countries. Results show that there is a statistically significant decrease in maximum daily values of NO2 emissions in almost all cities. The concentrations of other pollutants indicate that the closure measures cannot be related to statistically significant reductions. A noticing finding is that a statistically significant reduction in pollutants (except for SO2) is more frequent in cleaner cities.