Impact of Lockdown on Ambient Air Quality in Nagpur Due to COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

AbstractThe objective of this paper is to study the change in ambient concentration of three of the standard criteria pollutants namely respiratory suspended particulate matters (RSPM or PM10), sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) because of lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic. It is studied for three locations viz. residential, industrial and commercial in and around the Nagpur city. The data has been collected from January to June 2020, where there was a normal situation from January to March for three months and a complete lockdown from April to June 2020 for three months. The monthly average concentrations of all three pollutants during the normal situation and lockdown period have been compared. It is found that the average concentration of all three pollutants at all the three locations is reduced by about 42–66% due to the lockdown. During the lockdown period the average concentration of SO2 was reduced to 5 µg/m3 from 14 µg/m3 in the normal situation. The average concentration of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) was reduced to 12 µg/m3 from 39 µg/m3 and the average concentration of RSPM reduced to 72 µg/m3 from 133 µg/m3 due to lockdown. It is observed that the concentration of all the pollutants during lockdown was below the prescribed CPCB standards. Air quality index (AQI) at all three locations improved from the range of 101–200 in the normal situation to 51–100 in the lockdown period. The quality of ambient air changed from MODERATE to SATISFACTORY. The reduction of pollutants is mainly due to the shutdown of anthropogenic activities in all three locations in and around Nagpur.KeywordsRSPMPM10SO2NO2TrendsAir quality index, etc.