Air pollution has been reduced by an average of 64% in Spain during the lockdown. According to a study developed by researchers from the Centre for Physical Technologies at the Universitat Politècnica de València, since the social confinement and economic activity restriction measures were approved, the levels of NO2 (nitrogen dioxide) air pollution have been radically reduced in the main Spanish cities.
The health emergency caused by COVID-19 has caused a crisis without recent precedents in Spain or in the rest of the European continent. The measures adopted by the different countries of the world have caused significant reductions in mobility and economic activity. In Spain, the state of alarm was declared on March 14 through Royal Decree 463/2020, extended, for the moment, until April 26. Based on this regulation, a series of measures have been adopted that imply the drastic reduction of road transport.
Ecologists in Action has found that in Madrid and Barcelona, cities that do not meet the legal standards for emissions of this pollutant, no station has exceeded the limits in March. Inside the M30 in Madrid, traffic has been reduced by 75%. In the low-emission zone of Rondas de Barcelona, it has decreased by 77%.
The research by the Polytechnic University of Valencia has been carried out by analysing satellite images from the Sentinel-5P mission of the Copernicus programme of the European Space Agency (ESA). The best-off city has been Barcelona, whose decrease is quantified at 83%. In Madrid, NO2 emissions have dropped by 73% and in Valencia, by 74%.
As for the rest of the cities studied, in Bilbao pollution has decreased by 66%. Gijón has reduced it by 65%, Castellón by 76%, Alicante by 68%, Malaga by 55% and Zaragoza by 52%. Seville shows a less notable decrease (36%) although, according to the researchers, it started from the lowest level of nitrogen dioxide concentration.
NITROGEN DIOXIDE EXPOSURE ON PEOPLE’S HEALTH
Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels in the atmosphere have been increasing in recent years as a result of the use of gasoline and diesel in road traffic. High exposure to this pollutant can cause serious consequences for people’s health, such as decreased lung function or resistance to respiratory infections. Various scientific studies relate the increase in the incidence of bronchitis in adults or bronchiolitis in children with high exposure to NO2. According to the European Environment Agency, nitrogen dioxide is responsible for some 79,000 premature deaths in 2015 in Europe. In Spain, this figure is around 7,000 people.
Most of the NO2 present in the atmosphere comes from the oxidation of NO caused by combustion reactions at high temperatures.
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