Observational study of major air pollutants over urban Romania in 2020 in comparison with 2019
CHIRITESCU R.-V., Enrico De Luca, Gabriela Iorga
Abstract
This study aims to characterize urban air pollution in 33 cities across Romania in 2019 and 2020. The global COVID-19 pandemic that started in mid-March 2020 provided us with a unique opportunity to find out what would be the possible variation range of major air pollutants in Romanian urban areas under various strengths of anthropogenic activity. The time-series of atmospheric main pollutant mass concentrations, particulates PM10 and PM2.5 and gaseous species NO2, CO, SO2, O3, were statistically analyzed for each city for the representative month of each season in 2019 and 2020 and then used to estimate the pollutant impact on the surrounding regions. Results show significant decreases for most pollutants in most cities especially in spring of 2020, during the hard lockdown period. Maps of interpolated mass concentrations reveal regional significant differences with pollutant-specific hot- and cold-spots in Romania. This work constitutes a good database to characterize de urban air pollution in Romanian major cities and the spatial distribution of their impact around.