As the coronavirus pandemic takes hold and triggers lockdowns in major urban centers, researchers tasked with examining air pollution data are seeing significant improvements in air quality levels.
“Although there could be slight variations in the data due to cloud cover and climate change, we are very confident that the reduction in emissions that we can see coincides with the closure in Italy causing less traffic and industrial activities,” said Josef Aschbacher , from ESA, in a statement.
Lack of activity reveals itself in other surprising ways as well. Venice residents have noticed that the water is clearer now that the city is closed. Fish have even been seen in the canals , which is unusual in waters normally filled with sediment agitated by so much canal traffic, equating to a previous report of a similar phenomenon over China during the period of January 1, 2020. to February 25, 2020 in which a considerable drop in carbon dioxide levels was exposed.
Effect on air quality
According to the World Health Organization , about 91% of the world’s population lives in places where air quality levels exceed acceptable limits . Globally, this results in an estimated 4.2 million premature deaths annually, according to 2016 statistics.
“What surprises me the most is that the measures we are ready to face this coronavirus are much more severe than the measures we would be ready to face climate change or air pollution,” commented François Gemenne, director of the Hugo Observatory, a center for environmental research.
And the change is so dramatic that some believe that these short-term reductions could end up saving many more lives than those lost with the virus, as the spread of the new coronavirus has decreased air pollution and possibly even saved lives. in the process.
Stanford University environmental resources economist Marshall Burke did some calculations on the recent drop in air pollution in parts of China and the potential lives saved. “Given the vast amount of evidence that breathing dirty air is a major contributor to premature mortality, a natural, if strange, question is whether lives saved from this reduction in pollution caused by the economic disruption of COVID-19 they exceed the death toll from the virus itself, “writes Burke. “Even under very conservative assumptions, I think the answer is a clear yes.”
According to Burke, the decline is a quarter to a third in some places compared to last year’s levels. The two months of pollution abatement, Burke estimates, have probably saved the lives of 4,000 children under 5 and 73,000 adults over 70 in China . This is far more than the current number of global deaths from the virus itself.
Referencia: European Space Agency
