Data of satellite observation for environmental assessment before and during COVID-19 pandemic in part of Indonesia using the cloud-computing platform

Abstract

The global pandemic of COVID-19 has been insisted by many countries in the world to implement social distancing, including Indonesia. This research measured the environmental impact before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia. Variables, such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2) of Sentinel-5P Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (Tropomi), nighttime light condition of Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Day/Night Band (DNB) and land surface temperature (LST) of Thermal InfraRed Sensor (TIRS) of Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager (OLI), were monitored using the cloud-based computing platform of Google Earth Engine (GEE). This study found that all monitored variables decreased during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the period before the pandemic. However, the pattern of reduction of NO2 concentration and nighttime light was not observed to be coherent with large-scale social distancing regulation enforced by the government. This study found that the reduction has begun 2 months earlier than the official regulation enforced by the government. The lower LST shown in both the time-series map and the graph demonstrated changes before and during the pandemic. The hypothesis was tested using the t-test method, and the statistical results show the significant difference between two groups of observed variables (e.g. before and during the pandemic) with the lower p-values and higher Cohen's d. Results of this study indicate that it should be feasible to monitor the environmental impact of the COVID-19 pandemic using the combination of NO2 concentration, nighttime light and LST information as a proxy.