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Air quality variations in Northern South America during the COVID-19

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Article  in  Science of The Total Environment · December 2020

DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.141621

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 Science of the Total Environment 749 (2020) 141621

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Science of the Total Environment

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scitotenv

Air quality variations in Northern South America during the

COVID-19 lockdown
Juan F. Mendez-Espinosa a, Nestor Y. Rojas b, Jorge Vargas b, Jorge E. Pachón c,
Luis C. Belalcazar b, Omar Ramírez d,⁎
a
Ingeniería Ambiental, Escuela de Ciencias Agrícolas, Pecuarias y del Medio Ambiente - ECAPMA, Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia - UNAD, Transversal 31 # 12 - 38 sur, Bogotá, Colombia
b
Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia
c
Centro Lasallista de Investigación y Modelación Ambiental - CLIMA, Universidad de la Salle, 111711 Bogotá, Colombia
d
Faculty of Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Universidad Militar Nueva Granada, Km 2 Cajicá, Zipaquirá, Colombia

H I G H L I G H T S G R A P H I C A L A B S T R A C T

• Short-term NO2, PM10, PM2.5 decreased

by 60%, 44%, and 40% respectively
during the strict lockdown.
• Short-term NO2, PM10, PM2.5 decreased
by 62%, 58%, and 69% respectively for
the relaxed lockdown.
• Long-term NO2, PM10, PM2.5 reductions
were of 50%, 32%, and 9% respectively
for the strict lockdown.
• Regional biomass burning increased
PM2.5 concentrations by 20 μg/m3
during the strict lockdown.
• Policies equivalent to reduced lockdown
mobility could bring pollution close to
WHO guidelines.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Lockdown measures led to air pollution decrease in several countries around the world such as China and India,
Received 2 June 2020 whereas other regions experimented an increase in pollutant concentrations. Northern South America (NSA) was
Received in revised form 5 August 2020 one of those areas where pollution changed during lockdown due to high fire activity. This study aims to analyze,
Accepted 9 August 2020
for the first time in NSA, the behavior of selected criteria air pollutants during the implementation of the SARS-
Available online 11 August 2020
CoV-2 lockdown in two high populated cities of the region: Bogotá and Medellín in Colombia. A set of tools in-
Keywords:
cluding surface measurements, as well as satellite and modeled data were used. 24-hour average concentrations
SARS-CoV-2 of PM10, PM2.5, and NO2 were collected from air quality stations for the lockdown period ranging from February
Pandemic 21 to June 30, 2020. The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) was used to analyze the fire flux OC
Lockdown as a biomass burning (BB) indicator, and tropospheric NO2 concentrations were retrieved from TROPOMI. The
Particulate matter HYSPLIT model was used to analyze back trajectories and fire data were obtained from MODIS sensor measure-
NO2 ments. Our analysis shows short-term background NO2, PM10, and PM2.5 concentration reductions of 60%, 44%,
Biomass burning and 40%, respectively, for the strict lockdown; and 62%, 58%, and 69% for the relaxed lockdown. Corresponding
long-term reductions were of 50%, 32%, and 9% for the strict lockdown; and 37%, 29%, and 19% for the relaxed
lockdown. Regional BB increased PM2.5 concentrations by 20 μg/m3 during the strict lockdown, and the Saharan
dust event increased PM10 concentrations up to 168 μg/m3 in Bogotá, and 104 μg/m3 in Medellín, bringing an ad-
ditional risk of morbidity and mortality for population. Regional BB has several causes that need to be properly

⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: omar.ramirez@unimilitar.edu.co (O. Ramírez).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.141621
0048-9697/© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
2 J.F. Mendez-Espinosa et al. / Science of the Total Environment 749 (2020) 141621

managed to benefit local air quality improvement plans. Future cleaner transport policies equivalent to reduced
lockdown mobility could bring pollution close to WHO guidelines.
© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-
2) pandemic, a new human-infecting betacoronavirus (Lu et al., 2020),
was identified in Wuhan, China in December 2019. The city was placed
under quarantine on January 23 and the World Health Organization
(WHO) declared the outbreak to be a public health emergency of inter-
national concern on January 30 (WHO, 2020a). The number of infected
people and the lethality of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) increased
exponentially between February and March of 2020, forcing most cities
around the world to be under some form of lockdown (Muhammad
et al., 2020). Citizen mobility was notably restricted to reduce the
spread of COVID-19. Consequently, commercial, industrial and enter-
tainment activities were closed, and transport was one of the most af-
fected sectors due to the lockdown, which necessarily reduced the
number of cars on the road.
A relationship between air pollution and COVID-19 infections has
been explored in several regions of the world in two ways. On the one
hand, some studies have analyzed how air pollution is related to the
spread of the disease. In this way, Wu et al. (2020) found that an in-
crease in 1.0 μg/m3 of PM2.5 concentrations resulted in an 8% increase
in the mortality rate by COVID-19 in the United States. Other re-
searchers have reported a positive association of PM2.5, PM10, NO2,
and O3 with COVID-19 confirmed cases (Coccia, 2020; Ogen, 2020;
Zhu et al., 2020). On the other hand, some studies have evaluated
changes in air quality due to the lockdown. As a result of the drastic clo-
sure of economic and social activities, variations in concentrations of at-
mospheric pollutants such as NO2, PM10, PM2.5, SO2, and O3 have been
reported in European (Muhammad et al., 2020; Tobías et al., 2020),
Asian (Jain and Sharma, 2020; Xu et al., 2020), African (Otmani et al.,
2020), Latin American (Dantas et al., 2020; Nakada and Urban, 2020),
and United States cities (Muhammad et al., 2020). Furthermore,
Chauhan and Singh (2020) reported PM2.5 changes during lockdowns
in 9 selected major cities in Asia, Europe, and the USA. Our study con-
tributes to this second approach.
The first detected case of COVID-19 in South America was reported
in Sao Paulo, Brazil on February 26 (WHO, 2020b). Later, the first two
confirmed cases in Colombia (the most populous country in Northern
South America - NSA) (CIA, 2019) were reported on March 6, 2020, in
Bogotá. A third case was confirmed on March 9 in Medellín. Starting
on March 20, Bogotá implemented an obligatory local lockdown during
a three-day holiday weekend to test how the city would cope with a
possible COVID-19 outbreak. As of March 25, as a consequence of an in-
creasing number of confirmed cases of COVID-19, a national lockdown
was in place in Colombia that restricted most of the economic activities,
excepting the provision of basic products and services, such as food and
medicines, energy (electricity and fuels), human and animal health,
home, banking, public transportation, sanitation and emergency ser-
vices, among others. Therefore, the main sources of urban emissions
were cut to historically low levels. The lockdown was relaxed on April
27 to reactivate economic sectors such as construction and manufactur-
ing, including textiles, leather, wood, paper, chemicals and metals in-
dustries, and some commercial activities (Ministerio del Interior, 2020).
These conditions would lead to better air quality as found in several
regions, especially for those most polluted countries such as China
(Isaifan, 2020; Wang et al., 2020) and India (Mahato et al., 2020;
Sharma et al., 2020). However, some areas in the world recorded high
levels of pollutants during the lockdown (Schiermeier, 2020)

Fig. 1. Map of the NSA region, with a focus on the main cities located in the Colombian Andes.
 J.F. Mendez-Espinosa et al. / Science of the Total Environment 749 (2020) 141621
representing an additional risk of morbidity and mortality for its popu-
lation (Conticini et al., 2020; Zhu et al., 2020). In NSA, two events of
long-range pollution transport to the most populated areas of the coun-
try were observed during the lockdown: regional biomass burning (BB)
at the end of March and in April 2020, and a Saharan dust intrusion at
the end of June. Hence, we aimed to analyze the behavior of selected
criteria air pollutants during the implementation of the COVID-19 lock-
down in two high populated cities of NSA: Bogotá and Medellín. A set of
tools including surface measurements, satellite images, and modeled
data was used.
2. Methods
2.1. Area of study
NSA covers an area of nearly 3.9 million km2 (longitude = −79.0,
latitude = −4.4 as the bottom left; longitude = −51.7, latitude =
13.1 as top right) with strategic ecological zones and around 100 million
inhabitants (Mendez-Espinosa et al., 2019). This region (Fig. 1) includes
five countries, namely Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia, northern Peru,
and northern Brazil.
2.2. Surface monitoring
To assess the changes in air quality levels, 24-hour average concen-
trations of PM10, PM2.5, and NO2 were collected in Bogotá (latitude:
4.624, longitude: −74.063, altitude: 2640 m above sea level, m.a.s.l)
and Medellín (latitude: 6.230, longitude: −75.5905, altitude: 1495 m.
a.s.l) for the period ranging from February 21, 2020, to June 30, 2020.
These cities are within the most populated and polluted cities in NSA
(Pachón, 2018; Aguiar-Gil et al., 2020; Ramírez et al., 2020), and are lo-
cated in the Andes mountain range with nearly 8 million and 3 million
inhabitants, respectively. Air quality data was collected from the public
monitoring networks such as SDA (http://201.245.192.252:81/) in
Bogotá and SIATA (https://siata.gov.co/siata_nuevo/) in Medellín. Pol-
lutant concentrations were reported at standard conditions (1 atm
and 25 °C) by local environmental authorities. For each city, we selected
one traffic station and one urban/suburban background station
(Table 1). Analyses were conducted for the periods before the lockdown
(February 21 to March 19), during the strict lockdown (March 20 to
April 26), and during the relaxed lockdown (April 27 to June 30),
assessing temporal pollution events, and comparing their relative
change (%).
A comparison with concentrations during the same periods of the
previous 5 years (2015 to 2019) was also performed to control for me-
teorological conditions and the average BB effects. In addition, concen-
trations were compared between days with high and low fire activity,
as well as the Saharan dust intrusion event that took place on June
24th and 25th, to estimate the contribution of regional sources to local
PM2.5 pollution during the lockdown. High fire activity days were de-
fined as the days with a number of fires above the 75th percentile.
2.3. Satellite monitoring and active fire analysis
Data from the TROPOMI monitoring instrument were used to ana-
lyze changes of NO2 concentrations during the studied period. Tropo-
spheric NO2 columns (levels 2 and 3) were retrieved from the Sentinel
5p platform (https://s5phub.copernicus.eu/dhus/) and further proc-
essed and analyzed with the Phyton HARP package. Changes on air qual-
ity were assessed on one day per each of the lockdown periods. On the
other hand, Organic Carbon emissions from the Copernicus Atmo-
spheric Monitoring Systems and associated with wildfires (fire flux OC
emissions) were used as an indicator of BB (CAMS, 2019). Changes in
fire flux OC emissions were assessed for the three periods: before the
lockdown, during the strict lockdown, and during the relaxed lock-
down. Finally, active fires were retrieved from FIRMS (https://firms.
3
modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/). Only fires with a confidence equal or greater
than 75% were selected. The open-source programing language R and
the OpenAir package (http://www.openair-project.org/) were used to
analyze results.
2.4. Back trajectory analysis
The Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory Model
HYSPLIT (Stein et al., 2015) was used to establish the origin of air masses
arriving at Bogotá and Medellín before the lockdown, during the strict
lockdown, and during the relaxed lockdown. HYSPLIT has been used
in previous studies to analyze the impact of medium and long-range
transport of pollution to cities in NSA (Ramírez et al., 2018; Méndez
et al., 2018; Mendez-Espinosa et al., 2019). Trajectories were calculated
for eight arrival times daily in order to consider medium-range trans-
port, and each trajectory was computed 72 h before the arrival. Recep-
tors were located at the background air quality monitoring station,
500 m above ground level. The National Center for Atmospheric Re-
search (NCEP) provided the GDAS1 meteorological fields (https://
www.ready.noaa.gov/archives.php). The meteorological dataset was
used in the model set up since it can be useful for regional analyses
without high computational power and storage due to its horizontal
resolution of 1° and its 23 vertical levels. In addition, a comparison of
concentrations on days with high and low fire activity was performed,
to estimate the impact of fires on air quality during the lockdown
period.
3. Results
3.1. Variations in pollutant concentrations during the lockdown
Particulate matter concentrations were reduced significantly as a
consequence of the lockdown in both cities with respect to the preced-
ing month (Table 2, Fig. 2).
At Bogotá's background station, PM10 and PM2.5 average concentra-
tions were approximately 40 μg/m3 and 30 μg/m3 before the lockdown.
The decline was slow during the strict lockdown, as it took nearly
10 days to achieve low concentrations, and high values occurred again
during the third week of lockdown. This was followed by oscillations
at lower values during the relaxed lockdown. In average, a decline of ap-
proximately 16 μg/m3 and 25 μg/m3 of PM10 (39% and 63% reduction)
was achieved during the strict lockdown and the relaxed lockdown, re-
spectively. For PM2.5, reductions were of 10 μg/m3 and 22 μg/m3 (34%
and 75%), respectively. The traffic station showed similar relative reduc-
tions for both pollutants.
Reductions of PM10 were greater for Medellín during the strict lock-
down, approximately 30 μg/m3 (50% reduction) in the background sta-
tion and 43 μg/m3 (52%) in the traffic station but did not change much
more during the relaxed lockdown. Reductions of PM2.5 in the back-
ground station were of 19 μg/m3 (45%) and 26 μg/m3 of PM10 (62%) dur-
ing the lockdown and the relaxed lockdown, respectively, with larger
reductions in the traffic station. Similar reductions in PM10 (59%) and
PM2.5 (60%) were found in Asian and European cities (Tobías et al.,
2020; Zhao et al., 2020).
Variations of NO2 concentrations during the lockdown showed a dif-
ferent behavior, with similar or higher reductions during the strict lock-
down than the relaxed lockdown (Table 2, Fig. 2). At the traffic station in
Bogotá, average NO2 concentration was around 49 μg/m3 before the
lockdown. A sharp decline and later oscillations resulted in a reduction
of 31 μg/m3 (63% reduction) during the strict lockdown and a similar
figure during the relaxed lockdown.
In Medellín, NO2 concentration was around 45 μg/m3 before the
lockdown and declined sharply at the beginning of the strict lockdown,
then increased. A similar situation was observed during the relaxed
lockdown. As a result, the average reduction was of approximately
30 μg/m3 (65%) during the strict lockdown, and of 13 μg/m3 (28%)
4 J.F. Mendez-Espinosa et al. / Science of the Total Environment 749 (2020) 141621

Table 1
Air quality monitoring stations. NA: Not available.

City Station Type of station Location Background Traffic

PM10 NO2 PM2.5 PM10 NO2 PM2.5

Bogotá Centro de Alto Rendimiento Urban background 4.6585 x x x

−74.0840
Las Ferias Traffic 4.6907 x x x
−74.0824
Medellín Concejo de Itagüí Suburban background 6.1685 x NA x
−75.6443
Estación Tráfico Centro Traffic 6.2525 x x x
−75.5695

during the relaxed lockdown. NO2 represents a good tracer for traffic
emissions (Ogen, 2020), activity that was substantially diminished dur-
ing the lockdown. According to Google COVID-19 Community Mobility
Report (https://www.google.com/covid19/mobility/), traffic activity in
Bogota and Antioquia (where Medellin is located) decreased by an aver-
age of 70% during the strict lockdown and 49% during the relaxed lock-
down. Although reduction percentages in observed NO2 were different
from those in traffic activity, they were consistent in terms of the rela-
tive reductions during the strict and relaxed lockdown periods.
3.2. Comparison with previous years
The comparison of lockdown concentrations with those measured
during equivalent periods of the previous years is useful to control for
meteorological conditions and examine the effect of the changes oc-
curred during 2020 from a wider perspective. In Bogotá, NO2 was 22%
(background station) and 4% (traffic station) higher before the lock-
down in 2020 than in previous years (Table 3). A similar situation oc-
curred for PM2.5, with concentrations 13% and 29% higher before the
lockdown, which indicates an increased activity of combustion sources,
particularly BB. In contrast, PM10 concentrations, more closely associ-
ated with the resuspension of particulate matter, were 7% and 2%
lower before the lockdown in 2020 than in previous years' equivalent
period. During the strict lockdown, the reduction in pollutant concen-
trations was substantial: >50% in NO2, around 30% in PM10, and 13%
(background station) to 5% (traffic station) in PM2.5. Finally, during
the relaxed lockdown, reductions were lower for NO2 (<50%), but
higher for PM10 (~36%) and PM2.5 (~33%) than for the strict lockdown
period. This can be explained by the increase in vehicle emissions, espe-
cially heavy-duty diesel, and the lower contribution of combustion
sources such as BB during the relaxed lockdown, compared with the
strict lockdown period.
In Medellín, NO2 concentrations at the traffic station were 16% lower
before the lockdown period in 2020 than the equivalent period in previ-
ous years, suggesting lower vehicle emissions. PM2.5 concentrations
were about the same (2% variation) and PM10 increased 10% suggesting
more resuspension emissions. For the same period, PM2.5 was signifi-
cantly higher (19%) in the background station, associated with the in-
creased activity of regional sources such as BB. During the strict
lockdown in 2020, NO2, PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations at the traffic sta-
tion were sharply reduced by 69%, 33% and 35%, respectively, with re-
spect to previous years.
During the relaxed lockdown, long-term reductions in NO2 and PM10
were lower (35% and 19%, respectively) than short-term ones. Long-
term PM2.5 reductions did not change during the relaxed lockdown, in-
dicating that PM2.5 was not only affected by vehicle emissions, but also
by regional sources such BB, which were more active during the strict
lockdown period. The background station, in fact, showed higher con-
centrations of PM2.5 during the period before the lockdown in 2020
than the average of the equivalent period in the last 5 years, which
can be associated with higher regional source emissions in 2020 than
in previous years (ECMWF, 2020) registering just a 6% reduction during
the strict lockdown (because of lower vehicle emissions but higher re-
gional emissions) and just a 3% reduction during the relaxed lockdown
(due to slightly lower vehicle emissions and much lower regional activ-
ity). PM10 reductions at the background station were 2%, 33%, and 25%
before the lockdown, during the strict lockdown, and during the relaxed
lockdown, respectively. This suggests that particulate matter resuspen-
sion, partly associated with traffic, is a significant source of PM10 in
Medellín, especially its coarse fraction.

Table 2
Average concentrations of PM10, PM2.5, and NO2 for the periods before lockdown (February 21 to March 19), strict lockdown (March 20 to April 26), and relaxed lockdown (April 27 to June
30), and their relative variation between periods. NA: Not Available.

Concentration (μg/m3) Variation Traffic variation (%)

Before lockdown Strict lockdown Relaxed lockdown Strict lockdown Relaxed Strict lockdown Relaxed lockdown
lockdown

Station Pollutant μg/m3 % μg/m3 %

Bogotá
Background NO2 42.6 ± 6.2 17.0 ± 6.9 16.4 ± 8.0 −25.6 −60 −26.2 −62 −73 −50
PM10 40.2 ± 12.1 24.4 ± 13.2 14.8 ± 12.8 −15.8 −39 −25.4 −63
PM2.5 29.6 ± 10.1 19.4 ± 12.4 7.4 ± 5.5 −10.2 −34 −22.2 −75
Traffic NO2 48.7 ± 8.4 18.0 ± 8.1 18.7 ± 10.2 −30.8 −63 −30.0 −62
PM10 47.2 ± 12.7 29.9 ± 13.6 16.0 ± 13.5 −17.3 −37 −31.1 −66
PM2.5 32.3 ± 9.9 20.7 ± 13.9 7.9 ± 5.0 −11.6 −36 −24.5 −76

Medellín
Background NO2 NA NA NA NA NA NA NA −73 −49
PM10 61.8 ± 14.2 31.6 ± 16.1 29.1 ± 10.0 −30.2 −49 −32.8 −53
PM2.5 41.9 ± 11.6 23.1 ± 14.7 15.9 ± 4.3 −18.8 −45 −26.0 −62
Traffic NO2 45.3 ± 13.4 15.8 ± 10.5 32.6 ± 10.4 −29.6 −65 −12.7 −28
PM10 81.9 ± 17.0 38.9 ± 17.5 40.8 ± 13.5 −42.9 −52 −41.1 −50
PM2.5 50.6 ± 12.0 25.6 ± 15.4 18.5 ± 5.7 −25.0 −49 −32.1 −63
 J.F. Mendez-Espinosa et al. / Science of the Total Environment 749 (2020) 141621 5

Fig. 2. Time series of daily average concentrations of NO2, PM10, and PM2.5 between February 21, 2020, and June 30, 2020 in Bogotá and Medellín, Colombia.

The fulfilment of the WHO air quality guidelines, especially during 3.3. Back trajectory analysis and effects of long-range transport
the relaxed lockdown period, represents a reduction in the additional
risk of morbidity and mortality due to the COVID-19 pandemic The lockdown was a natural experiment of historical importance
(Conticini et al., 2020; Zhu et al., 2020). to assess the impact of local sources, especially vehicle emissions, as
6 J.F. Mendez-Espinosa et al. / Science of the Total Environment 749 (2020) 141621

Table 3
Average concentrations of PM10, PM2.5, and NO2 for the equivalent periods before lockdown (February 21 to March 19), strict lockdown (March 20 to April 26), and relaxed lockdown
(April 27 to June 30) from 2015 to 2019, and the relative variation with 2020. NA: Not Available.

Concentration 2015 to 2019 (μg/m3) Variation: 2020 – (2015 to 2019)

Before lockdown eq. Strict lockdown eq. Relaxed lockdown eq. Before Strict lockdown Relaxed
lockdown lockdown

Station Pollutant μg/m3 % μg/m3 % μg/m3 %

Bogotá
Background NO2 35.0 ± 7.9 33.9 ± 6.9 25.9 ± 6.1 7.6 22 −16.9 −50 −9.6 −37
PM10 43.5 ± 7.5 35.4 ± 5.8 22.3 ± 5.2 −3.3 −7 −11.0 −31 −7.5 −34
PM2.5 26.1 ± 3.7 22.2 ± 3.3 11.4 ± 2.2 3.4 13 −2.8 −13 −4.0 −35
Traffic NO2 47.0 ± 9.3 47.8 ± 8.9 36.8 ± 7.0 1.7 4 −29.8 −62 −18.1 −49
PM10 48.2 ± 8.3 41.3 ± 6.3 26.1 ± 5.0 −1.1 −2 −11.5 −28 −10.0 −38
PM2.5 25.1 ± 4.5 21.9 ± 3.4 11.4 ± 2.3 7.2 29 −1.2 −5 −3.5 −31

Medellín
Background NO2 NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA
PM10 62.9 ± 13.1 47.4 ± 8.7 38.6 ± 9.6 −1.1 −2 −15.7 −33 −9.5 −25
PM2.5 35.1 ± 6.6 24.6 ± 4.5 16.3 ± 4.5 6.8 19 −1.5 −6 −0.5 −3
Traffic NO2 54.2 ± 13.0 51.2 ± 12.1 50.4 ± 11.6 −8.9 −16 −35.5 −69 −17.8 −35
PM10 74.2 ± 11.1 58.5 ± 10.7 50.1 ± 11.7 7.6 10 −19.6 −33 −9.4 −19
PM2.5 49.4 ± 7.9 39.3 ± 7.3 27.9 ± 6.9 1.1 2 −13.8 −35 −9.5 −34

well as the regional impact of BB and the Saharan dust intrusion on
air quality. The beginning of the lockdown occurred in the middle
of a high air pollution event that had caused increased restrictions
to the use of private vehicles and cargo trucks. High concentrations
of air pollutants at the beginning of the lockdown can be associated
with BB in the Orinoco basin and the Magdalena Valley, as indicated
by the HYSPLIT back trajectories of air masses from high fire activity
areas arriving at Bogotá and Medellín (Fig. 3). The main impacts dur-
ing the lockdown occurred from March 20 to April 1st and from April
14 to May 1st.
The comparison between the days of high and low fire activity
(Table 4) shows that the increase in background concentrations as-
sociated with BB was as high as 20 μg/m3 of PM10 in Bogotá and
19 μg/m3 of PM10 in Medellín. The impact of BB on air quality has

Fig. 3. Back trajectories density of air masses calculated with HYSPLIT and MODIS fires (orange dots) for (a.) Before lockdown, (b.) Strict lockdown, and (c.) Relaxed lockdown. The arrival
points of air masses were at 500 m AGL.
 J.F. Mendez-Espinosa et al. / Science of the Total Environment 749 (2020) 141621 7

Table 4 3.4. Spatial analysis of fire flux OC emissions and tropospheric NO2
Average concentrations of PM10 and PM2.5 during the lockdown (March 20 to June 30) and
the relative variation between days with high and low fire counts. NA: Not Available.
The fire flux OC assimilated data confirmed the changes in emissions
Concentration (μg/m3) Variation from BB in NSA during the lockdown period (Fig. 4). Not only Bogotá
(Low – and Medellín were affected, but other major cities such as Barranquilla
High fire count Low fire count
High)
(647 ± 290 (97 ± 82 in the Caribbean coast, and regions located northeast of Ecuador (such
Station Pollutant fires/day) fires/day) μg/m3 % as Nueva Loja), western Venezuela (such as Barinas), and northeastern
Bogotá Colombian including Bucaramanga and Cúcuta, close to the border with
Background PM10 33.8 ± 10.4 14.2 ± 8.8 −19.6 −58 Venezuela. These regions comprise millions of people that could be ex-
PM2.5 27.9 ± 10.5 9.4 ± 7.8 −18.5 −66 posed to high levels of pollutants (PM10 up to 95 μg/m3 and PM2.5 up to
Traffic PM10 38.2 ± 11.3 15.9 ± 9.2 −22.3 −58
PM2.5 29.6 ± 11.2 9.1 ± 7.8 −20.4 −69
60 μg/m3), especially during the first three months of the year (fire sea-
son). Fire flux OC emissions before and during the strict lockdown were
Medellín higher than during the relaxed lockdown, especially in the north and
Background PM10 45.4 ± 15.4 26.6 ± 10.0 −18.8 −41
PM2.5 35.0 ± 14.6 16.6 ± 9.0 −18.3 −52
southwest of Colombia, the Amazon region in Ecuador and Peru, and
Traffic PM10 54.6 ± 19.4 35.8 ± 12.3 −18.8 −34 the northwest of Venezuela. This result was consistent with the results
PM2.5 38.6 ± 17.0 18.5 ± 9.6 −20.2 −52 obtained from ground observations. Recently, the CAMS confirmed that
fire activity and emissions from BB in NSA during 2020 were overall
above the 2003–2019 average (ECMWF, 2020), accordingly they need
to be properly managed to benefit local air quality improvement plans.
The major reductions described in Table 2 for NO2 were also ob-
been identified in previous studies, especially in the first quarter of served by analyzing tropospheric NO2 data supplied by TROPOMI. A no-
the year (Mendez-Espinosa et al., 2019; Hernandez et al., 2019; table reduction in NO2 concentrations was observed between one day
Rincón-Riveros et al., 2020). before the lockdown (March 6th), and two days during the lockdown:
On the other hand, the Saharan dust intrusion event caused a spike one day of low fire activity during the strict lockdown (April 7th), and
in PM10, which increased from an average of 37 μg/m3 during the re- one day during the relaxed lockdown (June 26th) (Fig. 5). In Bogotá,
laxed lockdown period to 85 μg/m3 (an increase of 48 μg/m3 or 130%) the reductions were 82% and 90% for the strict and relaxed lockdown
in Bogotá, and a similar increase in Medellín (48 μg/m3 or 123%). Events periods, respectively, higher than those obtained from ground observa-
of Saharan dust intrusion to the Andes are rather scarce but have af- tions at the background station (60% and 62%, Table 2). In Medellín, the
fected air quality in these two cities previously. Méndez et al. (2018) respective reductions were 37% and 19%, lower than those from ground
showed that the 2014 event increased PM10 concentrations up to observations at the traffic station (65% and 28%, Table 2). Urban NO2 is
168 μg/m3 in Bogotá, and 104 μg/m3 in Medellín. emitted from combustion processes, mainly from road traffic. Therefore,

Fig. 4. Organic Carbon fluxes in the NSA region for (a.) Before Lockdown, (b.) Strict lockdown, and (c.) Relaxed lockdown.
8 J.F. Mendez-Espinosa et al. / Science of the Total Environment 749 (2020) 141621
Fig. 5. Tropospheric NO2 column in Bogotá and Medellín for (a.) March 6, 2020 (Before lockdown), (b.) April 7, 2020 (Strict lockdown), and (c.) June 26, 2020 (Relaxed lockdown). Data
obtained from ESA Sentinel 5p/TROPOMI.
the tropospheric NO2 was at its minimum level during the lockdown in
NSA as a consequence of social isolation. These results concur with the
behavior of NO2 observed in China, Europe, and northeastern USA
(Muhammad et al., 2020).
4. Discussion
Previous sections showed that concentrations of PM10, PM2.5, and
NO2 in Bogotá and Medellín decreased during the COVID-19 lockdown.
In average, the variations were −60% for NO2, −44% for PM10, and
−40% for PM2.5 during the strict lockdown, and −62% for NO2, −58%
for PM10, and −69% for PM2.5 during the relaxed lockdown. The de-
crease in NO2 was associated with the reduction in traffic, as has been
documented in other cities in South America and around the world.
PM10 and PM2.5 also decreased, although BB events affected these re-
ductions during the strict lockdown.
The comparison with variations during the equivalent period of the
previous 5 years (long-term variations) showed that concentration re-
ductions were only partly due to the changes in meteorological condi-
tions that usually occur at this time of the year. In average, taking the
previous years as baseline, the variations were −50% for NO2, −32%
for PM10, and −9% for PM2.5 during the strict lockdown, and −37% for
NO2, −29% for PM10, and −19% for PM2.5 during the relaxed lockdown.
For policy-making purposes, these figures offer a more realistic scenario,
because policymakers should consider long-term variations and differ-
ent factors that affect them, avoiding misleading artifacts. Using a simi-
lar approach, Zangari et al. (2020) showed that, even though PM2.5 and
NO2 concentrations in New York decreased during the lockdown, no re-
ductions were observed in the long-term analysis.
To compare lockdown impacts on air quality with those achieved in
other cities around the world, the short- and long-term pollutant con-
centration changes in Bogotá and Medellín were considered as upper
and lower limits. Fig. 6 shows that, in general, reductions in these cities
were higher than the average of those found in Asian, European, North
American, and South American cities, when the short-term changes
are considered, but lower than the average for the long-term changes.
The reduction in PM2.5 at Bogota achieved during the relaxed lockdown
was higher than the average of the other cities for both short- and long-
term changes. The same occurred for NO2 at both cities during the re-
laxed lockdown, with the highest reductions in mobility.
It can be expected that policies aiming to reduce traffic emissions
will have significant improvements on air quality. If emissions reduc-
tions equivalent to those during the relaxed lockdown, with a 50% re-
duction in mobility and without the strong influence of BB emissions,
were achieved through better vehicle technologies, increase use of bicy-
cles and electric scooters, teleworking, and better transit, the annual av-
erage in pollutant concentrations at the background station in Bogotá
used for this study would be around 12 μg/m3 for PM2.5 (20% over the
 J.F. Mendez-Espinosa et al. / Science of the Total Environment 749 (2020) 141621 9

Fig. 6. Comparison of pollutant concentration changes associated to lockdowns in Almaty (Kerimray et al., 2020), Beijing, Delhi, Dubai, Mumbai, Shanghai, Rome, Zaragoza (Chauhan and
Singh, 2020), Malaysian cities (Kanniah et al., 2020), Northern China (Shi and Brasseur, 2020), Seoul, several cities in China, Tehran, Brussels, Madrid, Milan (a), Paris, New York
(a) (Bauwens et al., 2020), several cities in China (Zambrano-Monserrate et al., 2020), Taiwan (Griffith et al., 2020), the Yangtze River Delta (Li et al., 2020), Barcelona (Tobías et al.,
2020), Milan (b) (Collivignarelli et al., 2020), Western Europe (Menut et al., 2020), California (Bashir et al., 2020), New York (b) (Zangari et al., 2020), Rio de Janeiro (a: Dantas et al.,
2020; b: Siciliano et al., 2020), and Sao Paulo (a: Krecl et al., 2020, b: Nakada and Urban, 2020).

WHO guidelines), 19 μg/m3 for PM10, and 17 μg/m3 for NO2. Further re-
ductions in PM2.5 sources would, therefore, be needed to meet WHO
PM2.5 annual average guidelines.
5. Conclusions
This study analyzed the behavior of selected criteria air pollutants dur-
ing the implementation of the COVID-19 strict and relaxed lockdown pe-
riods, starting on 20 March 2020, in two major cities in NSA, for which a
set of tools including surface measurements, satellite images, and
modeled data was used. Background PM10 concentrations decreased on
average by 44% for the strict lockdown and 58% for the relaxed lockdown,
while PM2.5 decreased by 40% and 69%, respectively. The highest reduc-
tions were obtained on urban NO2 with 60% and 62% during the strict
and relaxed lockdown, respectively. Reductions were generally lower
when comparing lockdown levels with the equivalent periods of previous
years, because of higher pollution levels before the lockdown: for the
strict and relaxed lockdown, average long-term reductions were −50%
and −37% for NO2, −32% and −29% for PM10, and −9 and −19% for
PM2.5. Also, long-range air pollution transport affected air quality during
the lockdown. Biomass burning events in March and April increased
PM2.5 pollution by almost 20 μg/m3, whereas a Saharan dust intrusion
event at the end of June increased PM10 by almost 50 μg/m3, at both cities.
This study highlighted two important findings during the sanitary contin-
gence: i) cities of northern South America were able to achieve the lowest
level of pollutants (fulfilling WHO guidelines) during the lockdown pe-
riods, ii) air quality benefits were partially overridden by the impact of
BB and a Saharan dust event. A proper management of regional BB events
is of upmost importance for the NSA region.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
J.F. Mendez-Espinosa: Software, Investigation, Writing - original
draft, Writing - review & editing. N.Y. Rojas: Conceptualization, Writing
- review & editing. J. Vargas: Software, Investigation, Data curation. J.E.
Pachón: Writing - review & editing. L.C. Belalcazar: Conceptualization,
Data curation, Writing - review & editing. O. Ramírez: Conceptualiza-
tion, Investigation, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank “Secretaría Distrital de Ambiente” (SDA) and
“Sistema de Alerta Temprana de Medellín y el Valle de Aburrá” (SIATA)
10 J.F. Mendez-Espinosa et al. / Science of the Total Environment 749 (2020) 141621
for providing air pollution data. Thanks to Copernicus Atmosphere
Monitoring Service (CAMS) and NASA for satellite-modeling informa-
tion. We would also like to thank the developers of the HYSPLIT model,
the TROPOMI project, and the OpenAir package.
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