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Implications of COVID-19 on global environmental pollution and carbon emissions with strategies for sustainability in the COVID-19 era

The impacts of COVID-19 on global environmental pollution since its onset in December 2019 require special attention. The rapid spread of COVID-19 globally has led countries to lock down cities, restrict traffic travel and impose strict safety measures, all of which have implications on the environm...

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Autores principales: Yang, Mingyu, Chen, Lin, Msigwa, Goodluck, Tang, Kuok Ho Daniel, Yap, Pow-Seng
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier B.V. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8592643/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34793787
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.151657
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author Yang, Mingyu
Chen, Lin
Msigwa, Goodluck
Tang, Kuok Ho Daniel
Yap, Pow-Seng
author_facet Yang, Mingyu
Chen, Lin
Msigwa, Goodluck
Tang, Kuok Ho Daniel
Yap, Pow-Seng
author_sort Yang, Mingyu
collection PubMed
description The impacts of COVID-19 on global environmental pollution since its onset in December 2019 require special attention. The rapid spread of COVID-19 globally has led countries to lock down cities, restrict traffic travel and impose strict safety measures, all of which have implications on the environment. This review aims to systematically and comprehensively present and analyze the positive and negative impacts of COVID-19 on global environmental pollution and carbon emissions. It also aims to propose strategies to prolong the beneficial, while minimize the adverse environmental impacts of COVID-19. It systematically and comprehensively reviewed more than 100 peer-reviewed papers and publications related to the impacts of COVID-19 on air, water and soil pollution, carbon emissions as well as the sustainable strategies forward. It revealed that PM(2.5), PM(10), NO(2), and CO levels reduced in most regions globally but SO(2) and O(3) levels increased or did not show significant changes. Surface water, coastal water and groundwater quality improved globally during COVID-19 lockdown except few reservoirs and coastal areas. Soil contamination worsened mainly due to waste from the use of personal protective equipment particularly masks and the packaging, besides household waste. Carbon emissions were reduced primarily due to travel restrictions and less usage of utilities though emissions from certain ships did not change significantly to maintain supply of the essentials. Sustainable strategies post-COVID-19 include the development and adoption of nanomaterial adsorption and microbial remediation technologies, integrated waste management measures, “sterilization wave” technology and energy-efficient technologies. This review provides important insight and novel coverage of the environmental implications of COVID-19 in more than 25 countries across different global regions to permit formulation of specific pollution control and sustainability strategies in the COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 eras for better environmental quality and human health.
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spelling pubmed-85926432021-11-16 Implications of COVID-19 on global environmental pollution and carbon emissions with strategies for sustainability in the COVID-19 era Yang, Mingyu Chen, Lin Msigwa, Goodluck Tang, Kuok Ho Daniel Yap, Pow-Seng Sci Total Environ Article The impacts of COVID-19 on global environmental pollution since its onset in December 2019 require special attention. The rapid spread of COVID-19 globally has led countries to lock down cities, restrict traffic travel and impose strict safety measures, all of which have implications on the environment. This review aims to systematically and comprehensively present and analyze the positive and negative impacts of COVID-19 on global environmental pollution and carbon emissions. It also aims to propose strategies to prolong the beneficial, while minimize the adverse environmental impacts of COVID-19. It systematically and comprehensively reviewed more than 100 peer-reviewed papers and publications related to the impacts of COVID-19 on air, water and soil pollution, carbon emissions as well as the sustainable strategies forward. It revealed that PM(2.5), PM(10), NO(2), and CO levels reduced in most regions globally but SO(2) and O(3) levels increased or did not show significant changes. Surface water, coastal water and groundwater quality improved globally during COVID-19 lockdown except few reservoirs and coastal areas. Soil contamination worsened mainly due to waste from the use of personal protective equipment particularly masks and the packaging, besides household waste. Carbon emissions were reduced primarily due to travel restrictions and less usage of utilities though emissions from certain ships did not change significantly to maintain supply of the essentials. Sustainable strategies post-COVID-19 include the development and adoption of nanomaterial adsorption and microbial remediation technologies, integrated waste management measures, “sterilization wave” technology and energy-efficient technologies. This review provides important insight and novel coverage of the environmental implications of COVID-19 in more than 25 countries across different global regions to permit formulation of specific pollution control and sustainability strategies in the COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 eras for better environmental quality and human health. Elsevier B.V. 2022-02-25 2021-11-16 /pmc/articles/PMC8592643/ /pubmed/34793787 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.151657 Text en © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Article
Yang, Mingyu
Chen, Lin
Msigwa, Goodluck
Tang, Kuok Ho Daniel
Yap, Pow-Seng
Implications of COVID-19 on global environmental pollution and carbon emissions with strategies for sustainability in the COVID-19 era
title Implications of COVID-19 on global environmental pollution and carbon emissions with strategies for sustainability in the COVID-19 era
title_full Implications of COVID-19 on global environmental pollution and carbon emissions with strategies for sustainability in the COVID-19 era
title_fullStr Implications of COVID-19 on global environmental pollution and carbon emissions with strategies for sustainability in the COVID-19 era
title_full_unstemmed Implications of COVID-19 on global environmental pollution and carbon emissions with strategies for sustainability in the COVID-19 era
title_short Implications of COVID-19 on global environmental pollution and carbon emissions with strategies for sustainability in the COVID-19 era
title_sort implications of covid-19 on global environmental pollution and carbon emissions with strategies for sustainability in the covid-19 era
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8592643/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34793787
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.151657
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