Substantial changes in gaseous pollutants and chemical compositions in fine particles in the North China Plain during the COVID-19 lockdown period: anthropogenic vs. meteorological influences

Abstract

The rapid response to the COVID-19 pandemic led to unprecedented decreases in economic activities, thereby reducing the pollutant emissions. A random forest (RF) model was applied to determine the respective contributions of meteorology and anthropogenic emissions to the changes in air quality. The result suggested that the strict lockdown measures significantly decreased primary components such as Cr (−67 %) and Fe (−61 %) in PM_2.5 (p<0.01), whereas the higher relative humidity (RH) and NH₃ level and the lower air temperature (T) remarkably enhanced the production of secondary aerosol, including ${\mathrm{SO}}_{\mathrm{4}}^{\mathrm{2}-}$ (29 %), ${\mathrm{NO}}_{\mathrm{3}}^{-}$ (29 %), and ${\mathrm{NH}}_{\mathrm{4}}^{+}$ (21 %) (p<0.05). The positive matrix factorization (PMF) result suggested that the contribution ratios of secondary formation (SF), industrial process (IP), biomass burning (BB), coal combustion (CC), and road dust (RD) changed from 36 %, 27 %, 21 %, 12 %, and 4 % before the COVID-19 outbreak to 44 %, 20 %, 20 %, 9 %, and 7 %, respectively. The rapid increase in the contribution ratio derived from SF to PM_2.5 implied that the intermittent haze events during the COVID-19 period were characterized by secondary aerosol pollution, which was mainly contributed by the unfavorable meteorological conditions and high NH₃ level.