The Impact of COVID-19 on Air Quality

The world has been facing a pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus since early 2020. Community mitigation strategies were implemented in attempts to lower the risk for virus transmission. One such strategy included the issuance of orders, or lockdowns requiring persons to stay home, resulting in decreased population movement in certain areas during given timeframes. The aim of this study is to characterize the impact of these lockdowns associated with the pandemic on air quality throughout Maryland and Florida. Both states have several EPA monitoring sites, Florida with 30 and Maryland with 11, offering historic air quality data. Both states were also issued stay at home mandates. Hourly measurements of Particulate Matter (PM2.5) have been provided by the US EPA from multiple monitoring sites within each state from 2015 to 2020. PM 2.5 is a criterion pollutant monitored by the EPA and regulated under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards due to its detrimental effects to both humans and the environment. To analyze the effect of the pandemic on air quality, concentrations of each atmospheric pollutant monitored in 2020 were compared to the historic data provided by the same sites during the same period from 2015 to 2019. This work will be expanded into 10 other states, providing diverse conditions to conduct spatial comparisons