Covid-19 lockdown improves air quality in Morocco

TL;DR

The Covid-19 lockdown in Morocco led to notable improvements in air quality, with reductions in NO2 and PM2,5 pollutants, influenced by weather patterns and cross-border emissions, highlighting the impact of human activity on air pollution.

Contribution

This study provides a detailed spatio-temporal analysis of air quality changes during Morocco's Covid-19 lockdown using satellite data and compares observed data with model predictions.

Findings

Significant reduction in NO2 levels during lockdown

Partial reduction in PM2,5 pollutants observed

CAMS forecasts underestimate actual pollution levels

Abstract

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, almost all non-essential activities in Morocco have been halted since March 15, 2020. In this sense, several measures have been taken to mitigate the effects of this pandemic. Morocco has been on lockdown since March 20, 2020. The main objective of this paper is to study the effects of the lockdown measures on air quality, by presenting the spatio-temporal evolution of PM2,5 and NO2 pollutants, based on satellite data from Sentinel 5P and MERRA. Then, these results are compared to the data predicted by the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS). Results show that, on one hand, Morocco has experienced an improvement in air quality by a significant reduction in NO2 and a relative reduction in PM2,5. On the other hand, we demonstrate that the particulate pollution in Morocco is partly due to synoptic weather patterns, and that a significant part of NO2 emissions is incoming mainly from the outside northern borders of Morocco. Finally we show that PM2,5 CAMS global forecasts underestimate the observed MERRA data.