Hi readers!. Today’s post bring in details about COVID-19 and effects of air travel in EU.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused air travel demand to fall, as many countries across the globe implement major lockdowns. In the interests of preserving public health, most countries also stopped issuing visas through the series of strict government entry restrictions. Due to air travel being restricted in most parts of the world, we can see cleaner skies all over major cities.
We can see this phenomenon of a decrease in air pollution in major parts of the world including the region of Europe. The various restrictive measures that Europe governments undertook has resulted in a sharp fall in air and road traffic. Various data collected may reflect that such reduction in air travel and road traffic shows that there is a form of association to the improved air quality as harmful air pollutants are also simultaneously reduced (European Data Portal, n.d).
Through The European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, EUROCONTROL, we can see that there is the impact on air pollution as a result of a reduction in air and road traffic (European Data Portal, n.d). However, according to the organisation, more data is needed to conclude a casual relationship.
Figure 1: Screenshot of interactive overview showing the differences in the amount of air traffic compared to last year. (European Data Portal, n.d).
Figure 2: Pollutant concentrations across Europe – 7 day rolling averages. (European Data Portal, n.d).
The data indicate that the reduction in air and road traffic is linked to the reduction in air pollution, and NO2 in specific. Cities including Brussels, Paris, Madrid and several others showed a reduction in average levels of NO2 over March 5-25, compared with the same period last year, according to the Sentinel-5 satellite images (Abnett, 2020). However, more data is needed to support this estimation.
However, it is worth noting that, not all cities in the EU sees a fall in NO2 as other factors may also affect the air quality. Some factors include weather conditions and wind intensity. For example, some cities in Germany did not see a reduction in N02 levels during the lockdown (European Data Portal, n.d).
To conclude, we can see that a worldwide pandemic such as COVID-19 has resulted in a major reduction in air pollution specifically from most types of mobility such as on-air and land traffic. While it is true that more data is needed to understand if there is a direct association in a reduction in air and land traffic that result in fall in air pollution, we can see that certainly there the data reflects such association. This shows that more can be done to reduce air pollution, from the regional, government and individual level. Although air travel would stop temporarily bringing cleaner skies, showing a positive impact on the environment, if more actions are put in place to combat air pollution, we could see better long term impacts to sustain the environment.
For the upcoming post, I am looking into post COVID-19 after lockdown and the rebounding of air pollutants. Thank you for reading!
References:
Abnett, K. (2020, March 29). Coronavirus lockdowns give Europe’s cities cleaner air. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-air-pollution/coronavirus-lockdowns-give-europes-cities-cleaner-air-idUSKBN21G0XA
“European Data Portal”. The COVID-19 related traffic reduction and decreased air pollution in Europe. (n.d.). https://www.europeandataportal.eu/en/impact-studies/covid-19/covid-19-related-traffic-reduction-and-decreased-air-pollution-europe