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      Examining the impact of lockdown (due to COVID-19) on ambient aerosols (PM 2.5): A study on Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) Cities, India

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          Abstract

          The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has impacted all the aspects of environment. The numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths are increasing across the globe. In many countries lockdown has been imposed at local, regional as well as national level to combat with this global pandemic that caused the improvement of air quality. In India also lockdown was imposed on 25th March, 2020 and it was further extended in different phases. The lockdown due to outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has showed substantial reduction of PM 2.5 concentrations across the cities of India. The present study aims to assess concentration of PM 2.5 across 12 cities located in different spatial segments Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP). The result showed that there was substantial decrease of PM 2.5 concentrations across the cities located in IGP after implementation of lockdown. Before 30 days of lockdown, average PM 2.5 across cities was 65.77 µg/m 3 that reached to 42.72 µg/m 3 during lockdown periods (decreased by 35%). Maximum decrease of PM 2.5 concentrations has been documented in Lower Gangetic Plain (LGP) cities (57%) followed by Middle Gangetic Plain (MGP) cities (34%) and Upper Gangetic Plain (UGP) cities (27%) respectively. Among all the cities of IGP, maximum decrease of PM 2.5 concentrations was recorded in Kolkata (64%) (LGP) followed by Muzaffarpur (53%) (MGP), Asansol (51%) (LGP), Patna (43%) (MGP) and Varanasi (33%) (MGP).Therefore, this study has an immense potentiality to understand the impact of lockdown on a physical region (Ganga River Basin) and it may be also helpful for planners and policy makers to implement effective measures at regional level to control air pollution.

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          Effect of restricted emissions during COVID-19 on air quality in India

          Shubham Sharma, Mengyuan Zhang, Anshika … (2020)
          The effectiveness and cost are always top factors for policy-makers to decide control measures and most measures had no pre-test before implementation. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, human activities are largely restricted in many regions in India since mid-March of 2020, and it is a progressing experiment to testify effectiveness of restricted emissions. In this study, concentrations of six criteria pollutants, PM10, PM2.5, CO, NO2, ozone and SO2 during March 16th to April 14th from 2017 to 2020 in 22 cities covering different regions of India were analysed. Overall, around 43, 31, 10, and 18% decreases in PM2.5, PM10, CO, and NO2 in India were observed during lockdown period compared to previous years. While, there were 17% increase in O3 and negligible changes in SO2. The air quality index (AQI) reduced by 44, 33, 29, 15 and 32% in north, south, east, central and western India, respectively. Correlation between cities especially in northern and eastern regions improved in 2020 compared to previous years, indicating more significant regional transport than previous years. The mean excessive risks of PM reduced by ~52% nationwide due to restricted activities in lockdown period. To eliminate the effects of possible favourable meteorology, the WRF-AERMOD model system was also applied in Delhi-NCR with actual meteorology during the lockdown period and an un-favourable event in early November of 2019 and results show that predicted PM2.5 could increase by only 33% in unfavourable meteorology. This study gives confidence to the regulatory bodies that even during unfavourable meteorology, a significant improvement in air quality could be expected if strict execution of air quality control plans is implemented.
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            Changes in air quality during the lockdown in Barcelona (Spain) one month into the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic

            Aurelio Tobías, Cristina Carnerero, Cristina Reche … (2020)
            Lockdown measures came into force in Spain from March 14th, two weeks after the start of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic, to reduce the epidemic curve. Our study aims to describe changes in air pollution levels during the lockdown measures in the city of Barcelona (NE Spain), by studying the time evolution of atmospheric pollutants recorded at the urban background and traffic air quality monitoring stations. After two weeks of lockdown, urban air pollution markedly decreased but with substantial differences among pollutants. The most significant reduction was estimated for BC and NO2 (−45 to −51%), pollutants mainly related to traffic emissions. A lower reduction was observed for PM10 (−28 to −31.0%). By contrast, O3 levels increased (+33 to +57% of the 8 h daily maxima), probably due to lower titration of O3 by NO and the decrease of NOx in a VOC-limited environment. Relevant differences in the meteorology of these two periods were also evidenced. The low reduction for PM10 is probably related to a significant regional contribution and the prevailing secondary origin of fine aerosols, but an in-depth evaluation has to be carried out to interpret this lower decrease. There is no defined trend for the low SO2 levels, probably due to the preferential reduction in emissions from the least polluting ships. A reduction of most pollutants to minimal concentrations are expected for the forthcoming weeks because of the more restrictive actions implemented for a total lockdown, which entered into force on March 30th. There are still open questions on why PM10 levels were much less reduced than BC and NO2 and on what is the proportion of the abatement of pollution directly related to the lockdown, without meteorological interferences.
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              Assessing nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) levels as a contributing factor to the coronavirus (COVID-19) fatality rate

              Yaron Ogen (2020)
              Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is an ambient trace-gas as a result of both natural and anthropogenic processes. Long-term exposure to NO2 may cause a wide spectrum of severe health problems such as hypertension, diabetes, heart and cardiovascular diseases and even death. The objective of this study is to examine the relationship between long-term exposure to NO2 and fatality caused by the coronavirus. The Sentinel-5P is used for mapping the tropospheric NO2 distribution and the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis for evaluating the atmospheric capability to disperse the pollution. The spatial analysis has been conducted on a regional scale and combined with the number of death cases taken from 66 administrative regions in Italy, Spain, France and Germany. Results show that out of the 4443 fatality cases, 3487 (78%) were in five regions located in north Italy and central Spain. Additionally, the same five regions show the highest NO2 concentrations combined with downwards airflow which prevent an efficient dispersion of air pollution. These results indicate that the long-term exposure to this pollutant may be one of the most important contributors to fatality caused by the COVID-19 in these regions and maybe across the whole world.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Manob Das: dasmanob631@gmail.com
                Arijit Das: arijit3333@gmail.com
                Raju Sarkar: rajusarkar@dce.ac.in
                Sunil Saha: sunilgeo.88@gmail.com
                Journal
                Journal ID (nlm-ta): Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess
                Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess
                Title: Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment
                Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg (Berlin/Heidelberg )
                ISSN (Print): 1436-3240
                ISSN (Electronic): 1436-3259
                Publication date (Electronic): 16 October 2020
                Pages: 1-17
                Affiliations
                [1 ]GRID grid.449720.c, Department of Geography, , University of Gour Banga, ; Malda, 732103 West Bengal India
                [2 ]GRID grid.440678.9, ISNI 0000 0001 0674 5044, Department of Civil Engineering, , Delhi Technological University, ; Bawana Road, Delhi, 110 042 India
                Article
                Publisher ID: 1905
                DOI: 10.1007/s00477-020-01905-x
                PMC ID: 7567422
                SO-VID: b87448f7-c06c-4327-9a45-000897f4a101
                Copyright © © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
                License:

                This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.

                History
                Date accepted : 12 October 2020
                Categories
                Subject: Short Communication

                Keywords: lockdown,covid-19,indo-gangetic plain (igp),particle matter (pm2.5),upper gangetic plain (ugp)
                Data availability:
                Keywords: lockdown, covid-19, indo-gangetic plain (igp), particle matter (pm2.5), upper gangetic plain (ugp)

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