Epigrammatic study on the effect of lockdown amid Covid-19 pandemic on air quality of most polluted cities of Rajasthan
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Epigrammatic study on the effect of lockdown amid Covid-19 pandemic on air quality of most polluted cities of Rajasthan (India) Madhuben Sharma 1 & Sapna Jain 2
&
Bhawna Yadav Lamba 2
Received: 25 May 2020 / Accepted: 9 July 2020 # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Covid-19 pandemic has adversely affected all the aspects of life in adverse manner; however, a significant improvement has been observed in the air quality, due to restricted human activities amidst lockdown. Present study reports a comparison of air quality between the lockdown duration and before the lockdown duration in seven selected cities (Ajmer, Alwar, Bhiwadi, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Kota, and Udaipur) of Rajasthan (India). The period of analysis is 10 March 2020 to 20 March 2020 (before lockdown period) versus 25 March to 17 May 2020 (during lockdown period divided into three phases). In order to understand the variations in the level of pollutant accumulation amid the lockdown period, a trend analysis is performed for 24 h daily average data for five pollutants (PM2.5, PM10, NO2, SO2, and ozone). Keywords Covid-19 . Air quality . NO2 . Air pollutant . Particulate matter . Ozone
Introduction At the end of the year 2019, China’s health authority ominously reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) about a severe type of pneumonia in Wuhan city of Hubei Province in central China (Lu et al. 2020). The report addressed the severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus (SARS-CoV-2), now popularly known as Covid-19. It was declared as a pandemic on March 11, 2020, by WHO (Gorbalenya et al. 2020); it has caused over 4.8 million global infections and more than 3.2 lakhs confirmed deaths in 216 countries, as of this writing (21 May 2020) (WHO 2020). In India, over one lakh cases have been confirmed with a death record of over 3700, until 21 May 2020 (GOI (Government of India) 2020). Considering the population in India, the conditions are still not as frightening as in other countries of the world. This can be attributed to the early preventive measures taken by the government of India. In order to combat the pandemic and
* Sapna Jain [email protected] 1
School of Engineering, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Bidholi, Energy Acres, Dehradun, Uttarakhand 248007, India
2
Department of Applied Sciences and Humanities, School of Engineering, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Bidholi, Energy Acres, Dehradun, Uttarakhand 248007, India
restrict the further spread of the virus from one source to another, multiple interventions, including lock down, have been implemented. The schedule of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown in India is given in Table 1. The lockdown includes ban on travel on all modes of transports (surface, air, and water) and closures of factories, causing cessation of business including tourism, various industries, local markets, construction, food business, and mining. However, there was a time liberty for essential services like medicines, groceries, fruits, and vegetables. The immediate lateral consequence is observ
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