Version 1
: Received: 14 February 2022 / Approved: 18 February 2022 / Online: 18 February 2022 (12:27:48 CET)
How to cite:
Albanai, J.; Shehab, M.; Vatresia, A.; Al-Dashti, H. COVID-19 (2020) Impact on Air Quality of the State of Kuwait. Preprints.org2022, 2022020236. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202202.0236.v1
Albanai, J.; Shehab, M.; Vatresia, A.; Al-Dashti, H. COVID-19 (2020) Impact on Air Quality of the State of Kuwait. Preprints.org 2022, 2022020236. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202202.0236.v1
Cite as:
Albanai, J.; Shehab, M.; Vatresia, A.; Al-Dashti, H. COVID-19 (2020) Impact on Air Quality of the State of Kuwait. Preprints.org2022, 2022020236. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202202.0236.v1
Albanai, J.; Shehab, M.; Vatresia, A.; Al-Dashti, H. COVID-19 (2020) Impact on Air Quality of the State of Kuwait. Preprints.org 2022, 2022020236. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202202.0236.v1
Abstract
Research have been conducted in many countries around the world to assess air quality during COVID-19 pandemic, especially during lockdown period, some of these studies found an increase or decrease in some pollutants. This paper investigates the impact of COVID-19 on seven air pollutants (i.e., PM2.5, PM10, NO2, O3, SO2, H2S, CO) from the period January 2020 to December 2020 in the State of Kuwait. Kuwait is a desert country located in the north-eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula, and the northeast of the Arabian Gulf (Persian as it is sometimes called). Several analytical methods were conducted, such as spatial analysis (spatial interpolation) to study the distribution of the studied variables. The data was also statistically analysed (time series analysis - Kernel density) to study the temporal changes. The analysis also included applying air quality index to the data. We found that concentrations for the pollutants decreased during the pandemic due to the decrease of anthropogenic sources including such as traffic and petroleum activities, but the concentration for PM2.5 increased, mostly because of the transported dust coming with the northwest winds prevailing in Kuwait from the Arabian deserts and Iraq.
Keywords
Kuwait; Covid-19; Air quality Index; GeoHealth; Kernel Density
Subject
Environmental and Earth Sciences, Environmental Science
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
