Research of the impact of economic decline on air quality in Wuhan under COVID-19 epidemic

Junda Qiu; Peng Li; Congzhe You; Honghui Fan

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0282706

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionOctober 17, 2022
1 Nov 2022 Decision Letter - Zhihong (Arry) Yao, Editor PONE-D-22-28609Research of the impact of economic decline on air quality in Wuhan under COVID-19 epidemicPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Li, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 16 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. 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Please see the following video for instructions on linking an ORCID iD to your Editorial Manager account: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xcclfuvtxQ [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Partly ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: While your manuscript has apparently undergone some sort of editorial screening and considered to be of sufficient quality to be sent out for review, I'm still finding many problems with the grammar and organization that would lead me to suggest that it still needs editing by someone with some subject area experience. While the topic is good and the analysis is well-done, the importance of the research needs to be better explained. I will suggest to the editors that the article be accepted after some major editing that addresses the organization and presentation of the paper. Reviewer #2: The impact of economic recession on urban air quality under the background of COVID-19 is a good research topic. The author used a novel economic impact model to analyze the impact of economic recession on air quality in Wuhan, and used the Model (SOAM) to evaluate the air quality in Wuhan. Quantitative results are obtained. Overall, the paper is well written, with clear language and logical structure, and it is recommended to be published in“PLOS ONE”with appropriate revisions. Specific comments： 1."Abstract" further summarizes the main conclusions of the paper and highlights the research focus. 2.The "Introduction" contains a lot of content, and it is suggested to further condense and integrate relevant content to illustrate the innovation and necessity of this research. 3.In "Methodology", it is recommended to add applicability analysis and uncertainty analysis of Model (SOAM). 4.The formula in“L180”is missing number,, please supplement. 5.We all know that recession-induced improvements in air quality are inevitable. Based on the research results of this paper, can the author draw some concrete suggestions on the synergistic development relationship between economy and air quality, so as to make the conclusion of this paper more valuable for reference? It is suggested to edit the article and adjust the logic of language expression. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. 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Revision 1
4 Feb 2023 Author Response Reviewer #1: 1. Response to comment: (I'm still finding many problems with the grammar and organization that would lead me to suggest that it still needs editing by someone with some subject area experience.) Response: Thank you very much for your suggestion. We appreciate your hard work, we are ashamed for our negligence in language inspection. We attach great importance to this opinion. Therefore, we carefully revised the entire manuscript. 2. Response to comment:(While the topic is good and the analysis is well-done, the importance of the research needs to be better explained.) Response: As you suggested that we have revised the abstract, contributions and conclusion to correctly describe the importance of the research. Revise: A novel economic impact model is proposed by this paper to analyze the impact of economic downturn on the air quality in Wuhan during the epidemic period, and to explore the effective solutions to improve the urban air pollution. The Space Optimal Aggregation Model (SOAM) is used to evaluate the air quality of Wuhan from January to April in 2019 and 2020. The analysis results show that the air quality of Wuhan from January to April 2020 is better than that of the same period in 2019, and it shows a gradually better trend. This shows that although the measures of household isolation, shutdown and production stoppage adopted during the epidemic period in Wuhan caused economic downturn, it objectively improved the air quality of the city. In addition, the impact of economic factors on PM2.5, SO2 and NO2 is 19%, 12% and 49% respectively calculated by the SOMA. This shows that industrial adjustment and technology upgrading for enterprises that emit a large amount of NO2 can greatly improve the air pollution situation in Wuhan. The SOMA can be extended to any city to analyze the impact of the economy on the composition of air pollutants, and it has extremely important application value at the level of industrial adjustment and transformation policy formulation. Contributions The existing research only shows that there is an inevitable relationship between economic development and air pollution, and does not analyze the extent to which various pollutants are affected by economic development. The SOMA proposed by this paper modeling the air quality data of Wuhan in the same period of 2019 and 2020. Then, it is analyzed that the air pollutant most affected by Wuhan's economic development is NO2, which gives guiding suggestions for Wuhan's industrial adjustment and transformation decisions. In addition, the SOMA can be employed for analyzing the air pollution data of any city, according to the development characteristics of the city, the impact of its economic development on various air pollutants is obtained, and then suggestions on air pollution control are given. Conclusion The SOAM aggregation method is proposed in this paper based on the expansion of Steiner-Weber point problem into n-dimensional space, and PGSA algorithm is applied to solve the problem that the daily data of main air pollutants with multi-attribute are aggregated into monthly report data. Thus, the comprehensive evaluation value of air quality in each month can be calculated by linear weighting method, so as to evaluate the air quality of each month. The air quality of Wuhan city from January to April in 2020 and from January to April in the previous year in each month were studied and evaluated by using SOAM method. The results show that, in the first four months of 2020, after the COVID-19 epidemic situation forced Wuhan to take measures of shutdown, production suspension and home isolation, the economy was in a state of stagnation or decline, and the air quality of Wuhan showed an obvious trend of improvement. Moreover, the overall air quality in the first four months of 2020 is better than that in the same period of 2019 in the normal year of the previous year. Because of home isolation, the variables of economic factors in the city tend to zero, which provides a very rare real experimental study for the influence of simple economic variables on air quality. In this paper, an economic impact degree model is proposed, which is compared with the same period of 2019 in normal economic activity year to obtain the economic impact degree of major pollutants. The results show that the influence of economic factors on PM2.5 is 19%, that of SO2 is 12%, and that of NO2 is 49%. That is to say, eliminating economic factors or increasing economic factors can reduce or increase PM2.5, SO2 and NO2 by 19%, 12% and 49% respectively. The influence degree of pure economic factors on each pollutant is: NO2, PM2.5, SO2. According to the data analysis results, we can conclude that Wuhan should urge relevant enterprises to control NO2 emissions through technological innovation and industrial transformation, so as to complete air pollution control. The SOAM proposed by this paper is suitable for analyzing the relationship between economic development and air pollution in other large and medium-sized cities in China. According to the degree of correlation between economic development and air pollutants, the core problems faced by local industrial transformation can be accurately obtained. Reviewer #2: 1. Response to comment:("Abstract" further summarizes the main conclusions of the paper and highlights the research focus.) Response: Thank you very much for your suggestion. We have revised the abstract to further summarizes the main conclusions of the paper and highlights the research focus. Revise: A novel economic impact model is proposed by this paper to analyze the impact of economic downturn on the air quality in Wuhan during the epidemic period, and to explore the effective solutions to improve the urban air pollution. The Space Optimal Aggregation Model (SOAM) is used to evaluate the air quality of Wuhan from January to April in 2019 and 2020. The analysis results show that the air quality of Wuhan from January to April 2020 is better than that of the same period in 2019, and it shows a gradually better trend. This shows that although the measures of household isolation, shutdown and production stoppage adopted during the epidemic period in Wuhan caused economic downturn, it objectively improved the air quality of the city. In addition, the impact of economic factors on PM2.5, SO2 and NO2 is 19%, 12% and 49% respectively calculated by the SOMA. This shows that industrial adjustment and technology upgrading for enterprises that emit a large amount of NO2 can greatly improve the air pollution situation in Wuhan. The SOMA can be extended to any city to analyze the impact of the economy on the composition of air pollutants, and it has extremely important application value at the level of industrial adjustment and transformation policy formulation. 2. Response to comment:(The "Introduction" contains a lot of content, and it is suggested to further condense and integrate relevant content to illustrate the innovation and necessity of this research.) Response: As you suggested that we have revised the introduction to make it more concise and clear. The research problem statement and contributions are always described in a new section. Your suggestion makes our article more readable. Revise: Contributions The existing research only shows that there is an inevitable relationship between economic development and air pollution, and does not analyze the extent to which various pollutants are affected by economic development. The SOMA proposed by this paper modeling the air quality data of Wuhan in the same period of 2019 and 2020. Then, it is analyzed that the air pollutant most affected by Wuhan's economic development is NO2, which gives guiding suggestions for Wuhan's industrial adjustment and transformation decisions. In addition, the SOMA can be employed for analyzing the air pollution data of any city, according to the development characteristics of the city, the impact of its economic development on various air pollutants is obtained, and then suggestions on air pollution control are given. 3. Response to comment:(In "Methodology", it is recommended to add applicability analysis and uncertainty analysis of Model (SOAM).) Response: As you suggested that we have added applicability analysis and uncertainty analysis of Model in "Methodology". Revise: The SOAM is suitable for analyzing the relationship between economic development and air pollutants in large and medium-sized cities. The industrial structure of megacities (Shanghai, Beijing, Chongqing, etc.) is complex, and the industrial centers are concentrated (similar enterprises are concentrated in specific regions, while different enterprises are distributed in different regions far away). The air pollution situation in different regions is quite different, the SOAM cannot accurately analyze the relationship between the economic development and air pollutants of the whole city. To solve this problem, megacities can be divided into regions according to the distribution of enterprises, then analyze the air pollution data of different regions. In addition, small cities have single industrial structure and are greatly affected by regional development, so their air pollution is not referential. To solve this problem, multiple small cities in the region can be merged into one urban agglomeration, then adjust the industrial structure by analyzing the relationship between the economic development and air pollution of the urban agglomeration. 4. Response to comment:(The formula in“L180”is missing number, please supplement.) Response: We are very sorry for our negligence of the number of formula (4). The necessary number is added to all formulas. 5. Response to comment:(We all know that recession-induced improvements in air quality are inevitable. Based on the research results of this paper, can the author draw some concrete suggestions on the synergistic development relationship between economy and air quality, so as to make the conclusion of this paper more valuable for reference?) Response: Your suggestion is very valuable for us. We have added some concrete suggestions on the synergistic development relationship between economy and air quality in "Conclusion". Revise: Conclusion The SOAM aggregation method is proposed in this paper based on the expansion of Steiner-Weber point problem into n-dimensional space, and PGSA algorithm is applied to solve the problem that the daily data of main air pollutants with multi-attribute are aggregated into monthly report data. Thus, the comprehensive evaluation value of air quality in each month can be calculated by linear weighting method, so as to evaluate the air quality of each month. The air quality of Wuhan city from January to April in 2020 and from January to April in the previous year in each month were studied and evaluated by using SOAM method. The results show that, in the first four months of 2020, after the COVID-19 epidemic situation forced Wuhan to take measures of shutdown, production suspension and home isolation, the economy was in a state of stagnation or decline, and the air quality of Wuhan showed an obvious trend of improvement. Moreover, the overall air quality in the first four months of 2020 is better than that in the same period of 2019 in the normal year of the previous year. Because of home isolation, the variables of economic factors in the city tend to zero, which provides a very rare real experimental study for the influence of simple economic variables on air quality. In this paper, an economic impact degree model is proposed, which is compared with the same period of 2019 in normal economic activity year to obtain the economic impact degree of major pollutants. The results show that the influence of economic factors on PM2.5 is 19%, that of SO2 is 12%, and that of NO2 is 49%. That is to say, eliminating economic factors or increasing economic factors can reduce or increase PM2.5, SO2 and NO2 by 19%, 12% and 49% respectively. The influence degree of pure economic factors on each pollutant is: NO2, PM2.5, SO2. According to the data analysis results, we can conclude that Wuhan should urge relevant enterprises to control NO2 emissions through technological innovation and industrial transformation, so as to complete air pollution control. The SOAM proposed by this paper is suitable for analyzing the relationship between economic development and air pollution in other large and medium-sized cities in China. According to the degree of correlation between economic development and air pollutants, the core problems faced by local industrial transformation can be accurately obtained. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282706.r002
13 Feb 2023 Decision Letter - Zhihong (Arry) Yao, Editor PONE-D-22-28609R1Research of the impact of economic decline on air quality in Wuhan under COVID-19 epidemicPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Li, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Mar 30 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Zhihong (Arry) Yao, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed Reviewer #2: (No Response) ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: I Don't Know Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: The authors have improved their manuscript. However, I recommend citing more articles on the Covid pandemic, such as： https://doi.org/10.1007/s41651-020-00064-5 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosres.2020.105362 https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12101576 https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12101613 https://doi.org/10.4209/aaqr.2020.05.0226 Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282706.r003
Revision 2
13 Feb 2023 Author Response Reviewer #1: 1. Response to comment: The authors have improved their manuscript. However, I recommend citing more articles on the Covid pandemic, such as： https://doi.org/10.1007/s41651-020-00064-5 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosres.2020.105362 https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12101576 https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12101613 https://doi.org/10.4209/aaqr.2020.05.0226 Response: Thank you very much for your suggestion. We have carefully studied these references and cited them as references for the paper ([6], [7], [10], [32] and [33]). Journal Requirements: Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Response: Thank you very much for your suggestion. We checked the list of reference list to ensure its validity, and updated some references according to the suggestions of Reviewer #1. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: renamed_9a27e.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282706.r004
20 Feb 2023 Decision Letter - Zhihong (Arry) Yao, Editor Research of the impact of economic decline on air quality in Wuhan under COVID-19 epidemic PONE-D-22-28609R2 Dear Dr. Li, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Zhihong (Arry) Yao, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282706.r005
Formally Accepted
27 Feb 2023 Acceptance Letter - Zhihong (Arry) Yao, Editor PONE-D-22-28609R2 Research of the impact of economic decline on air quality in Wuhan under COVID-19 epidemic Dear Dr. Li: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Zhihong (Arry) Yao Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282706.r006

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