Seismic signature of the COVID-19 lockdown at the city-scale: A casestudy with low-cost seismometers in the city of Querétaro, Mexico

Abstract. Seismometers have detected the social response to lockdown measures implemented following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in cities around the world. This long-lasting lockdown has been a particular challenge in countries such as Mexico, where the informal economy constitutes most of the working population. This context motivated the monitoring of the mobility of populations throughout the various phases of lockdown measures, independently from people's access to the internet and mobile technologies. Here we use the variation of anthropogenic seismic noise in the city of Queretaro (central Mexico) recorded by a network of low-cost Raspberry Shake seismic stations to study the spatial and temporal variation of human activity in the city throughout the pandemic and during sportive events. The results emphasize the importance of densifying urban seismic networks and tracking human activities without the privacy concerns associated with mobile technologies.