Spatio-temporal assessment of ambient air quality, their health effects and improvement during COVID-19 lockdown in one
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Spatio-temporal assessment of ambient air quality, their health effects and improvement during COVID-19 lockdown in one of the most polluted cities of India Markandeya 1 & Pradeep Kumar Verma 2 & Vibhuti Mishra 3 & Neeraj Kumar Singh 4 & Sheo Prasad Shukla 2,3 & Devendra Mohan 5 Received: 10 June 2020 / Accepted: 13 October 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The present work aims to investigate seasonal variations in air pollution levels in Lucknow and assess the ambient air quality of the city together with highlighting the health impacts of major pollutants like PM10, PM2.5, SO2, NO2, Pb, Ni and aerosols from 2010 to 2019. The maximum and minimum values of PM10, PM2.5, SO2, NO2, Pb and Ni were found to be 270.75 and 122.45 μg/m3, 124.95 and 95.52 μg/m3, 25.60 and 8.05 μg/m3, 75.65 and 23.85 μg/m3, 0.66 and 0.03 μg/m3 and 0.07 and 0.01 ng/m3, respectively. Health impact of particulate matter has also been assessed with AirQ+, and it was estimated that long-term exposure of PM10 was attributed to between 37 and 48% for post-neonatal (age 1–12 months) mortality rate due to all causes, whereas longterm attributable proportions in mortality due to exposure of PM2.5 were to about 19 to 28% from all causes. Further, an attempt has also been made to evaluate the impact of lockdown amid COVID-19 on the ambient air quality of Lucknow. During the lockdown, PM2.5 levels reduced by 65% (at Gomti Nagar), 23% (at central school), 79% (at Lalbagh) and 35% (at Talkatora), due to which, air quality index of Gomti Nagar came down to 43, well below 50 which falls in the healthy range. NO2 levels also came down. However, levels of SO2 did not show significant reduction. Correlating the data between aerosol optical depth and Angstrom exponent by Pearson correlation analysis revealed a significant positive correlation (r = 0.65, P < 0.001). Keywords Air pollution . Aerosol . AirQ+ . Lockdown . AQI . Health effect
Highlights • Spatio-temporal assessment of various pollutants like PM10, PM2.5, SO2, NO2, Pb, Ni and atmospheric aerosols from 2010 to 2019 was performed. • AQI score for most of the studied locations was found in the poor category. • During the lockdown, AQI scores decreased to well below 50, in the healthy range. • High AE value was observed in October to November because of stubble burning during the harvest season in Northern India. • The health impact of air pollutants was estimated using AirQ+ software. • Long-term exposure to PM2.5 to ambient air increased the risk of stroke by 20%. Responsible Editor: Gerhard Lammel * Markandeya [email protected] * Devendra Mohan [email protected] 1
2
Ex-Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (BHU), Varanasi 221005, India Rajkiya Engineering College, Banda 210201, India
3
Department of Civil Engineering, Institute of Engineering and Technology, Lucknow 226021, India
4
Central Mine Planning and Design Institute Limited (CMPDIL), Regional Institute-7, Bhubaneswar 751001, India
5
Department
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