medRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.15.20248285; this version posted December 29, 2020. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license . The Impact of COVID-19 Lockdowns on the Behavior of Italian Citizens and Particulate Matter 10 and 2.5 Emissions in Lombardy Alessandro Rovetta1,2 1 Mensana srls, Research and Disclosure Division, Brescia, Italy 2 Redeev srl, Technologic and Scientific Research, Napoli, Italy e-mail:
[email protected], ORCID: 0000-0002-4634-279X Keywords: Consumption, COVID-19, Italy, Lockdown, PM10, PM2.5, Sustainability Abstract Italy has been one of the first nations in the world to be heavily affected by the first wave of COVID-19. To date, it is among the first countries for both total cases of contagion and deaths. A wide range of containment measures have been adopted from February to December 2020 to mitigate the pandemic, including total lockdowns across the entire country. This research sets out to evaluate not only how these restrictions influenced Italian citizens’ consumption habits (such as online shopping, smart working and distance learning) but also the impact of lockdowns on the concentrations of particulate matter (PM) 10 and 2.5 in the Lombardy region. In particular, this survey is aimed at investigating the environmental sustainability of the new individual behaviors after the restrictions imposed by the Government in order to quantify their effects on particulate concentrations in Lombardy, the region most damaged by both COVID-19 and air pollution.