Anil Ismail, Alagha Omar
Environmental Engineering Department, College of Engineering A13,, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Main Campus, P.O. Box 1982, Dammam, 34212 Saudi Arabia.
Air Qual Atmos Health. 2021;14(1):117-128. doi: 10.1007/s11869-020-00918-3. Epub 2020 Aug 29.
Since the identification of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, the death toll from the direct infection by COVID-19 has exceeded 775,000, and more than 21 million cases have been reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) around the world. It is strongly believed that its impact might be worsened by poor outdoor and indoor air qualities, particularly on older adults. The nationwide lockdown measures were imposed between March 23 and June 20, 2020, to stop the spread of COVID-19 pandemic in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). In this work, the possible effects of the lockdown on the air quality were investigated using meteorological and air quality datasets obtained from eight monitoring stations covering the Eastern Province of the KSA. The studied air pollutants include carbon monoxide (CO), sulfur dioxide (SO), nitrogen dioxide (NO), ozone (O), and inhalable particulate matter (PM). The NO was found to be the marker pollutant responding best to the lockdown measures since its concentrations decreased at all sites during- and post-lockdown periods and ranged between 12-86% and 14-81%, respectively. Compared with pre-lockdown period, the Eastern Province also experienced significant concentration reductions at varying rates for PM (21-70%), CO (5.8-55%), and SO (8.7-30%), while O concentrations showed increasing rates ranging between 6.3 and 45%. The consequences of these reductions were reflected in easing the outdoor air quality, which might reduce the impact of COVID-19 pandemic, especially on elderly and sensitive groups.
自2019年12月在中国武汉发现新冠疫情以来，新冠病毒直接感染导致的死亡人数已超过77.5万，全球向世界卫生组织（WHO）报告的病例超过2100万。人们坚信，室外和室内空气质量不佳可能会加剧其影响，尤其是对老年人。沙特阿拉伯王国于2020年3月23日至6月20日实施了全国范围的封锁措施，以阻止新冠疫情的蔓延。在这项工作中，利用从沙特阿拉伯东部省份的八个监测站获得的气象和空气质量数据集，研究了封锁对空气质量的可能影响。所研究的空气污染物包括一氧化碳（CO）、二氧化硫（SO）、二氧化氮（NO）、臭氧（O）和可吸入颗粒物（PM）。发现NO是对封锁措施反应最明显的标志性污染物，因为在封锁期间和封锁后其浓度在所有站点均下降，降幅分别在12% - 86%和14% - 81%之间。与封锁前相比，东部省份的PM（21% - 70%）、CO（5.8% - 55%）和SO（8.7% - 30%）浓度也有不同程度的显著下降，而O浓度则有6.3%至45%的上升。这些污染物浓度下降的结果反映在室外空气质量的改善上，这可能会降低新冠疫情的影响，尤其是对老年人和敏感人群的影响。
