Seismic noise recorded by telecommunication fiber optics reveal the
impact of COVID-19 measures on human activities
Abstract
Quantifying the response of human activities to different COVID-19
measures may serve as a potential way to evaluate the effectiveness of
the measures and optimize measures. Recent studies reported that seismic
noise reduction caused by less human activities due to COVID-19 lockdown
had been observed by seismometers. However, it is difficult for current
seismic infrastructure in urban cities to characterize spatiotemporal
seismic noise during the post-COVID-19 lockdown because of sparse
distribution. Here we show key connections between progressive COVID-19
measures and spatiotemporal seismic noise changes recorded by a
distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) array deployed in State College, PA.
We first show spatiotemporal seismic noise reduction (up to 90%)
corresponding to the reduced human activities in different city blocks
during the period of stay-at-home. We also show partial noise recovery
corresponding to increased road traffics and machines in Phase
Yellow/Green. It is interesting to note that non-recovery seismic noise
in 0.01-10 Hz suggests the low level of pedestrian movement in Phase
Yellow/Green. Despite of a linear correlation between mobility change
and seismic noise change, we emphasize that DAS recordings using
city-wide fiber optics could provide a way for quantifying the impact of
COVID-19 measures on human activities in city blocks.