Abstract:

The Coronavirus (Covid-19), which started to be seen in Wuhan, China in December 2019, has affected many areas of life such as health, education, production, trade, social etc. Within the scope of Covid-19, some measures such as curfews have been taken, resulting in a partial improvement in air quality. The aim of this study is to examine the effect of the measures taken within the scope of Covid-19 on the air quality in the Eastern Mediterranean. In the study, daily measurement data of 9 measurement stations in Adana, Mersin, Hatay, Kahramanmaraş and Osmaniye provinces between 01.01.2019-01.06.2020 were obtained from the National Air Quality Monitoring Network (UHKIA) website of the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization. According to the results, there is a significant decrease in all pollutant values, especially PM 10 and SO2, of almost all stations from March 2020 until 01.06.2020 compared to the same period of the previous year (March-June 2019). The results of the statistical analyzes show that there are significant differences in the 99% confidence interval between the March-June periods of 2019 and 2020 in the average of the pollutant values of all stations, excluding the PM 10 pollutants of Kahramanmaraş, Hatay İskenderun and Adana stations. This gives the message that the human-environment relationship should be rearranged in line with the Human-Environment Tradition, depending on the rapidly increasing environmental pollution today.

Keywords: