Variation of Air Quality in Four Districts of Lima in the Period of the COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the variation of air quality parameters PM10, PM2.5, NO2, and O3 in four districts of Lima-Peru (Carabayllo, San Juan de Lurigancho, Villa María del Triunfo, and Jesús María) in the period 2015-2019 and 2020-2021. Likewise, the ozone variability in the Carabayllo district was modelled. Pollutant concentration data were collected from the National Service of Meteorology and Hydrology of Peru (SENAMHI) from the 4 stations located in the aforementioned districts. The data was processed with the IBM SPSS Statistics v.25 software. A statistically significant decrease was observed between the 2015-2019 and 2020-2021 periods in pollutants PM10, PM2.5, and NO2, in the four monitoring stations, mainly because the country entered in a state of emergency (quarantine due to COVID -19). However, an increase in O3 was observed, attributed to the decrease in NOX concentrations. Finally, the gamma generalized linear model represented 87.6% of the ozone variability in the Carabayllo district, showing a good fit for the field data. © 2022 IEEE.