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ARCHIVED - 41 per cent improvement in air quality across Spain attributed to coronavirus lockdown restrictions
Reduced travel brings about lower ozone and nitrogen dioxide levels, say Ecologistas en Acción
It is extremely difficult to find a positive side to the coronavirus pandemic, which has so far caused the deaths of over 1.2 million people worldwide, but a report published in Spain this week by Ecologistas en Acción suggests one silver lining in that Covid-19 appears to have led indirectly to a significant reduction in the level of air pollution in this country.
The improvement has come about due in large part to fewer harmful exhaust gases being emitted as a consequence of the restrictions on travel imposed since the spring, and the report finds that air quality in Spain has improved by an average of 41 per cent. Despite this, though, at least 36 million of the country’s 47.4-million population continue to breathe contaminated air due to the concentration of human activity in large cities.
Among the conclusions reached by the authors of the document is that the results clearly demonstrate the correlation between the emission of substances such as nitrogen dioxide or sulphur dioxide and the amount of ozone in the atmosphere. For this reason they reiterate their calls for governments at all levels to introduce measures to regulate transport, industry and intensive farming accordingly in order both to avoid episodes of very high pollution and to reduce the background level of contamination in the air.
It should be pointed out that the figure of 36 million people in Spain breathing polluted air is calculated using the WHO threshold, while by an alternative measure it can be concluded that around 4.4 million people have been exposed to poor quality air. This is still a high number, equivalent to just under 10 per cent of the population, but it is under half of the figure calculated in recent years and the lowest since Spain introduced its own threshold levels in 2010.
Since that date Ecologistas en Acción comment that 10 of Spain’s 17 regions have yet to implement plans to improve air quality, among them Andalucia, Aragón, the Balearics, Catalunya, Valencia, Navarra, the Basque Country, Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla y León.
The report identifies the areas with the worst air quality this year as having been the regions of Madrid, Extremadura, Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla y León, inland zones of Catalunya and the Comunidad Valenciana, the city of Córdoba and, most specifically, the Puente Nuevo industrial area, also in the province of Córdoba. The worst ozone readings have occurred in suburbs and rural areas downwind of the major conurbations of Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Córdoba, Granada, Málaga, Sevilla, Murcia, València, Valladolid and Palma, as well as rural areas in Andalucía, Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León, Catalunya, Valencia and Extremadura, although in general the measurements have been better than in previous years.
Given that it is not possible to attribute variations as significant as those seen this year to meteorological factors alone, it seems clear that they are due to the reduced exhaust emissions brought about by coronavirus lockdown measures.
Tropospheric ozone, also known as “bad ozone”, mainly affects rural areas and the outskirts of cities, and levels generally rise in the heat of spring and summer due to the combined effect of solar radiation and the emission of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds. This year the typical summer increase occurred as expected, but in spring the effect was far less significant due to an abundance of rainfall and the confinement of people to their homes and their local areas.
The report also makes mention of the latest estimates arrived at by the WHO and the European Environment Agency, who calculate that in 2016 the deaths of around half a million people in Europe were caused by poor air quality. This figure consists of an estimated 412,000 due to particles measuring under 2.5 microns in diameter (PM2.5), 71,000 through exposure to nitrogen dioxide and 15,000 through exposure to tropospheric ozone.
In other words, it can be deduced that poor air quality claims around 30,000 victims a year - 24,100 through PM2.5, 7.700 through NO2 and 1,500 through ozone - and if these figures are accurate they have doubled since the estimates of a decade ago.
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