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Multifractal property change of NOx and O3 variations in port area in responding to COVID-19 lockdown

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Abstract

The air quality in the urban area has been verified to undergo significant changes during COVID-19. However, the inner dynamics of air quality in port area during COVID-19 lockdown period are still not well understood. Besides, owing to the non-stationary and nonlinear features of air pollutants, simple statistical methods are difficult to accurately describe the cross-correlation between NOx and O3 in responding to COVID-19. Fortunately, multifractality theory is widely used to quantitatively describe the nonlinear evolution of a complicated system and the multiscale characteristics of physical quantities. Given the COVID-19 scenario, assessing the multifractal characteristics of pollutants before and during the pandemic in the Hong Kong port can indicate the effectiveness of lockdown policy and provide guidance for reducing port pollution. In this study, the multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis (MF-DFA) and multifractal detrended cross-correlation analysis (MF-DCCA) were used to investigate the multifractal properties of NOx and O3 before and during COVID-19 in port. Furthermore, the impact of lockdown measures on the emission reduction efficiency of NOx and O3 was investigated. The results shown that the different multifractal characteristics was determined during the pre-lockdown and lockdown period. In contrast to pre-lockdown, the cross-correlation behaviors between NOx and O3 during lockdown period were stronger in port station. It is deduced that on port station, the reduction of human activities presents the notable impact on the decrease of NOx emission and then results in the direct impact on the production of O3 during the photochemical reactions.

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Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.12072195).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Intelligent Transportation Systems and Unmanned Aerial Systems Applications, State Key Laboratory of Ocean Engineering, School of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Civil Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, People’s Republic of China

    Hongmei Zhao, Hongdi He & Cuilin Wu

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

    Xinghang Zhu

  3. School of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Civil Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, People’s Republic of China

    Dai Zhou

  4. Key Laboratory of Hydrodynamics of Ministry of Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, People’s Republic of China

    Dai Zhou

  5. International Center for Adaptation Planning and Design, College of Design, Construction and Planning, University of Florida, P.O. Box 115706, Gainesville, FL, 32611-5706, USA

    Zhongren Peng

  6. Healthy Building Research Center, Ajman University, Ajman, UAE

    Zhongren Peng

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  1. Hongmei Zhao
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Contributions

The authors confirm contribution to the paper as follows: study conception and design: H-mZ and H-dH; data collection: H-mZ; analysis and interpretation of results: H-mZ, H-dH, C-lW, X-hZ, DZ and Z-RP; draft manuscript preparation: H-mZ and H-dH. All authors reviewed the results and approved the final version of the manuscript.

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Zhao, H., He, H., Wu, C. et al. Multifractal property change of NOx and O3 variations in port area in responding to COVID-19 lockdown. Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess 38, 1145–1161 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00477-023-02620-z

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