Impacts of COVID-19 Restrictions on Regional and Local Air Quality Across Selected West African Cities

Fawole, Olusegun G. and Yusuf, Najib and Sunmonu, Lukman A. and Obafaye, Aderonke and Audu, Dauda K. and Onuorah, Loretta O. and Olusegun, Christiana F. and Abdoulaye, Deme and Senghor, Habib (2022) Impacts of COVID-19 Restrictions on Regional and Local Air Quality Across Selected West African Cities. GeoHealth, 6 (10). pp. 1-20. ISSN 2471-1403

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Abstract

The emergence of COVID-19 in December 2020 caused national and regional governments to introduce lockdown and restrict the movement of vehicles and human. There was also a significant reduction or total stoppage of industrial activities. This study, in the absence of reliable long-term ground-based measurement of ambient air pollutants, used observations from satellites and reanalysis data sets to investigate the level of air pollutants in the airshed of seven (7) major COVID-19 epicenters in the West African subregion and also over the entire subregion during the periods of lockdown. The level of pollutants during the pandemic in 2020 was compared against the mean of the three preceding years (2017–2019) to calculate the anomalies. The level of aerosol aerosol optical depth, SO2, and NO2 reduced substantially in 2020 compared to the reference years. However, the atmospheric levels of ozone and CO increased slightly in 2020 as against the reference years. The slight increase in CO levels could be attributed to local burning of domestic waste and biomass burning. There was a shift in the size distribution of atmospheric aerosols cluster toward the coarse fraction.

Item Type: Article
Subjects: A General Works > AS Academies and learned societies (General)
Divisions: Faculty of Natural and Applied Sciences
Depositing User: Uchenna Eneogwe
Date Deposited: 21 May 2025 15:00
Last Modified: 21 May 2025 15:00
URI: http://eprints.gouni.edu.ng/id/eprint/4615

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