Quiet Planet

The COVID-19 outbreak and the resulting social distancing recommendations and related restrictions have led to numerous short-term changes in economic and social activity around the world, all of which may have impacts on our environment.

For example, a decline in demand for fossil fuels and energy sources may be linked to reduced transportation (by surface, air, and sea) and commuting needs, as well as a reduction in industrial activities. Furthermore, early studies reveal reductions in air pollution in areas with reduced economic activity. The longer human activities are changed, the more visible, wider, and longer lasting the scope of environmental impacts may be.

Your challenge is to use space-based data to document the local to global environmental changes caused by COVID-19 and the associated societal responses. In addition to changes in the atmosphere/land/water/ice, how might you leverage Earth observations to explore changes in Earth-related attributes (such as land use, land cover, and other characteristics) in response to COVID-19?

Considerations:

• Your solution may focus on any type or combination of environmental phenomena (e.g., atmosphere, land, ocean, freshwater, ice), attributes, and locations. You may consider these attributes in your solution (but you are not limited to these examples):
  • Air Quality (e.g., transportation, factory emissions, deforestation)
  • Greenhouse Gas emissions
  • Wildfire events and impacts: Are there changes in prescribed fires plans? If so, what are their likely impacts?
  • Deforestation
  • Urban Heat Islands in major cities
  • Changes in water quality and quantity (e.g., changes in nitrogen deposition in lakes)
• How would you determine if observed environmental phenomena are impacts of the COVID- 19 pandemic?
• Active ports, harbors, lakes, and rivers are typically opaque to space-borne instruments because of sediment stirred up by boats. Now, the global standstill has unveiled a new realm or change in ecosystem dynamics.
• While air pollution is decreasing around the world due to lockdown orders, some regulators have relaxed pollution emission restrictions on certain industrial sectors (e.g., power plants). Therefore, the changes in air pollution associated with the pandemic will serve as a natural experiment in how the atmosphere responds to changes in pollutant emissions from various sources.
• Several recent studies have shown that NO2 emissions from satellite data serve as an effective proxy for co-emitted CO2 emissions from cities and power plants. Therefore, you may be able to assess the impact of the pandemic on atmospheric gas emissions.
• The NO2 data may be used to gauge the effectiveness of lockdown efforts to contain or slow the pandemic in a given area (e.g., by highlighting reductions in emissions from traffic and industry). Aid organizations could also use the data to identify those areas hit hardest by the virus.

NASA does not endorse any non-U.S. Government entity and is not responsible for information contained on non-U.S. Government websites.