Air quality and COVID-19 - Update 28 April 2020
The measures taken to combat the corona virus in Austria lead to significant changes in pollutant emissions. Evaluations of the Umweltbundesamt (Environment Agency Austria) show a decline in air pollutant concentrations at air quality monitoring stations close to traffic and in urban areas.
The Environment Agency Austria and the provincial governments monitor Austria’s air quality through a dense network of monitoring stations across Austria. Data is updated every half hour. An analysis of concentrations of nitrogen dioxide, undertaken since 16 March 2020 at selected monitoring stations, usually shows a decrease in concentrations.
Other factors than the lockdown measures, such as weather conditions, can also have an effect on the pollutant concentrations.
To assess how the COVID-19 pandemic affects concentrations of air pollution in Europe, the European Environment Agency (EEA) has developed a viewer that tracks the weekly average concentrations of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5). The viewer shows weekly averages for each city.
