Nelson Damba

This paper investigated how the restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic have affected air pollution within Canadian Census Metropolitan Areas/Census Agglomerations (CMAs/CAs) and provinces/territories in 2020 compared to 2019 (pre-pandemic). It explored the connection based on emission levels of two air pollutants (NO2 and PM2.5) obtained from the National Air Pollution Surveillance Program (NAPS) website, pandemic restrictions in Canadian cities obtained from COVID-19 Government Measures Dataset, and socio-demographic factors from the 2016 Census which are the pollutants causes. This secondary data compiled in Excel database was used within multiple analyses which included, descriptives, pairwise t-test, correlation, stepwise regression done in SPSS, and using GIS methods to map the final results. The results showed a reduction in NO2 emissions in many CMAs/CAs and provinces, but increased PM2.5 emissions in 31 CMAs/CAs and 8 provinces. Reductions in NO2 and PM2.5 were most prominent in March and April of 2020 when the most stringent COVID-19 restrictions were implemented. The overall results showed a small but significant connection between the air pollutants and the few socio-demographic variables chosen through the stepwise technique (i.e. commuting time, public transit, and work location) contributed to the connection. These results corroborate findings from previous studies on air pollution and mobility restrictions and indicate that strategies such as remote work, and conversion to environmentally friendly modes of transportation (hybrid vehicles) can be leveraged to reducing NO2 and PM2.5 emissions in the future. These strategies could especially be beneficial to the provinces and CMAs/CAs with high PM2.5 emissions. Lack of data limited how thorough the analysis of the topic could be conducted.