Air quality assessment among populous sites of major metropolitan cities in India during COVID-19 pandemic confinement
- PDF / 1,140,455 Bytes
- 8 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 114 Downloads / 208 Views
SHORT RESEARCH AND DISCUSSION ARTICLE
Air quality assessment among populous sites of major metropolitan cities in India during COVID-19 pandemic confinement Gaurav Pant 1
2
3
1
4
1
& Alka & Deviram Garlapati & Ashish Gaur & Kaizar Hossain & Shoor Vir Singh & Ashish Kumar Gupta
5
Received: 12 June 2020 / Accepted: 29 September 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The present study aims to determine the impact of COVID-19 pandemic confinement on air quality among populous sites of four major metropolitan cities in India (Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai) from January 1, 2020 to May 31, 2020 by analyzing particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), ammonia (NH3), sulfur dioxide (SO2), carbon monoxide (CO), and ozone levels. The most prominent pollutant concerning air quality index (AQI) was determined by Pearson’s correlation analysis and unpaired Welch’s two-sample t test was carried out to measure the statistically significant reduction in average AQI for all the four sites. AQI significantly plummeted by 44%, 59%, 59%, and 6% in ITO-Delhi, Worli-Mumbai, Jadavpur-Kolkata, and Manali Village-Chennai respectively. The findings conclude a significant improvement in air quality with respect to reduction of 49–73%, 17–63%, 30–74%, and 15–58% in the mean concentration of PM2.5, PM10, NH3, and SO2 respectively during the confinement for the studied locations. The p values for all of the four studied locations were found significantly less than the 5% level of significance for Welch’s t test analysis. In addition, reduced AQI values were highly correlated with prominent pollutants (PM2.5 and PM10) during Pearson’s correlation analysis. These positive results due to pandemic imprisonment might aid to alter the current policies and strategies of pollution control for a safe and sustainable environment. Keywords Air quality index . COVID-19 pandemic confinement . Pearson correlation analysis . Welch’s t test analysis
Introduction COVID-19 crisis is caused by coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), a severe acute respiratory syndrome (Jandrić 2020). Currently, India is undergoing a 4.0 phase of confinement and has 190,649 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 5406 deaths until May 31, 2020 (covid19india.org). Confinement in India or Responsible Editor: Marcus Schulz * Gaurav Pant [email protected]; [email protected] 1
Department of Biotechnology, Institute of Applied Sciences & Humanities, G.L.A. University, Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, India
2
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Banasthali Vidyapith, Banasthali, Rajasthan, India
3
National Centre for Coastal Research, Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Govt. of India, Chennai, India
4
Department of Environmental Science, Asutosh College (Estd. 1916), Kolkata, West Bengal, India
5
Amity University, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India
any part of the world ensures that all transportation, factories, construction work, restaurants, and other social places should be closed to follow the social distancing on a serious note.
Data Loading...
