Statistical evaluation of selected air quality parameters influenced by COVID-19 lockdown

Abstract

Air pollution has become a serious concern for its potential health hazard, however, often got less attention in developing countries, like Bangladesh It is expected that worldwide lockdown due to COVID-19 widespread cause reduction in environmental pollution in particularly the air pollution: however, such changes have been different in different places In Chittagong, a city scale lockdown came in force on 26 March 2020, a week after when first three cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Bangladesh This study aims to statistically evaluate the effects of COVID-19 lockdown (26 March to 26 April 2020) on selected air quality pollutants and air quality index s The daily average concentrations of air pollutants PMsub10/sub, PMsub2 5/sub, NOsub2/sub, SOsub2/sub and CO of Chittagong city during COVID-19 lockdown were statistically evaluated and were compared with dry season data averaging over previous 8 years (2012 to 2019) During lockdown, except NOsub2/sub, all other pollutants studied showed statistically significant decreasing trend During the COVID-19 shutdown notable reduction of 40%, 32% and 13% compared to the daily mean concentrations of these previous dry season were seen for PMsub2 5/sub, PMsub10/sub and NOsub2/sub, respectively The improvement in air quality index value was found as 26% in comparison to the previous dry season due to less human activities in COVID-19 shutdown The factor analysis showed that AQI in Chittagong city is largely influenced by PMsub10/sub and PMsub2 5/sub during COVID-19 shutdown The lesson learnt in this forced measure of lockdown is not surprising and unexpected It is rather thought provoking for the decision makers to tradeoff the tangible air quality benefits with ongoing development strategies' that was often overlooked directly or indirectly