CHANGES IN AIR QUALITY DURING COVID-19 SOCIAL DISTANCING IN HA NOI CITY

Tóm tắt

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed people's lives in many ways. Under the impact of COVID-19, the economy and society face challenges to recover. To control the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic, Viet Nam and countries around the world have restricted unnecessary travelling and transportations. The regulations on social distancing have significantly changed people's habits, activities, living and working styles. Many studies have shown that social distancing has significantly changed air quality. This study was conducted to assess the change of air quality in Ha Noi during the social distancing period. The evaluation is built based on measurements at air monitoring stations in the period before and after social distancing in 2021. The results show a significant improvement of air quality compared to its situation before social distancing at most of the air monitoring stations. The average daily VN_AQI index at Nguyen Van Cu station (Long Bien district), Kim Lien (Dong Da district), Tan Mai (Hoang Mai district) and Tay Mo (Nam Tu Liem district) and Minh Khai (Bac Tu Liem district) in the first 8 months of 2021 dropped from 97 (near unhealthy grade for sensitive groups) to 52 (near good) in averaged. The concentration of other pollutants (PM₁₀, PM2.5,) at other stations also show a significant decrease compared to the previous time.