Lockdown to Contain the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Opportunity to Create a Less Polluted Environment in India

Lal, Preet; Kumar, Amit; Bharti, Supriya; Saikia, Purabi; Adhikari, Dibyendu; Khan, M. L.

doi:10.4209/aaqr.2020.05.0229

Cited by 16 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…It might be due to an increase in secondary aerosol formation, aerosol water content, and other meteorological conditions. Likely researchers observed a maximum reduction in AOD in the IGP region followed by western, southern and eastern parts of India [15]. Satellite visual maps over IGP showed a reduction in AOD during March 2020 compared to Jan-Feb 2020 and a much more reduction is observed in April 2020 (Figure 1).…”

Section: Aerosol Optical Depth (Aod)mentioning

confidence: 81%

“…In such a situation, the national-level lockdown during 2020 to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus came up as a natural experiment to simulate the sensitivity of air pollutants. Several reports showed a significant plummet in primary emission sources or SLCPs (>30%) leading to the emergence of the blue sky after several decades in India [11,15,16]. Furthermore, a recent model-based study by our group predicted the drastic decline in fine particulate pollutant level during the lockdown had potentially avoided 73,853-92,116 mortalities during April-June 2020 that might have surpassed the fatality due to the pandemic [17].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Figure 3. Columunar distribution of NO2 during (a) 1st-24th March 2020 (b) 25th March-20th April 2020 (source:[15]). …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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COVID-19 Lockdown and the Aerosphere in India: Lessons Learned on How to Reduce Air Pollution

Panda¹,

Satpathy²,

Das³

et al. 2022

Biotechnology to Combat COVID-19

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The giant increase in COVID-19 infection across India forced the government to impose strict lockdown in order to curb the pandemic. Although the stringent restrictions crippled India’s economy and poor people’s livelihood, it significantly improved the air quality of most of the polluted cities of India and rejuvenated the atmosphere. Thus, the major objective of this study is to provide a comprehensive overview of lockdown on pollutants prevailing in the atmosphere. A prominent decline in primary pollutants such as Particulate matter (PM), Black carbon (BC), Oxides of nitrogen (NOx), Carbon monoxide (CO) is observed across the country. However, lockdown had a trifling impact on Sulphur dioxide (SO2) concentration over some parts of India due to the constant operation of coal-fired thermal plants as a part of essential service. Furthermore, the sudden decline in NOx concentration disturbed the complex atmospheric chemistry and lead to an enhancement of surface ozone (O3) (secondary pollutant) in many cities of India. Thus, lockdown emerged as a unique opportunity for the atmospheric researchers, policymakers as well as stakeholders to collect baseline data of pollutants and their major sources. This will help to set new targets of air quality standards and to develop various mitigation processes to combat air pollution.

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Section: Aerosol Optical Depth (Aod)mentioning

confidence: 81%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

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COVID-19 Lockdown and the Aerosphere in India: Lessons Learned on How to Reduce Air Pollution

Panda¹,

Satpathy²,

Das³

et al. 2022

Biotechnology to Combat COVID-19

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“…The low concentration of aerosols in the atmosphere has a warming effect, which increases the frequency of formation of cyclones of varying intensities [ 36 ]. The COVID-19 pandemic induced lockdown in India (phase 1: 25 March 2020 to 31 May 2020) and Bangladesh (phase 1: from 22 March 2020 to 30 May 2020) resulting in a rapid decline in concentration of AOD in the Indian subcontinent [ 21 ] and in the Bay of Bengal. An average ~ 30% decrease in AOD was observed in a large (primarily in the southeastern) part of BoB from 01 April to 21 May 2020 compared to its analogous period in 2019 (Fig.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of Super Cyclone “Amphan” in the Indian Subcontinent amid COVID-19 Pandemic

Shubham

Lal

Kumar

2021

Remote Sens Earth Syst Sci

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Tropical cyclone “Amphan” developed as a super cyclone on 19 May 2020 and caused severe impact on the landmass with very high torrential precipitation (>250 mm day −1 ), and extremely high wind speed (>150 km h −1 ) after landfall on 20 May 2020. The tropical cyclone Amphan largely affected agricultural land (78.2%) and forest, including mangroves (10.8%) in eastern India and Bangladesh. The built-up area over the trajectory of the cyclone and its proximity, including eastern parts of the Kolkata metropolitan area, was considerably affected by the cyclone due to the high population density and poor structural and community planning. Although the regions with close proximities to cyclones’ trajectory (2033 km 2 area under <2 km proximity) were affected severely, the presence of mangrove forest in Sundarban substantially reduced the magnitude of the tropical cyclone. A considerable decrease (~30%) in aerosol optical depth (AOD) in April–May 2020 as compared to that in 2019 is considered one of the major causes of the development of the warm pool and cyclogenesis in the Bay of Bengal. The number of COVID-19 cases increased by ~70% in the post-cyclonic period (29 May 2020) compared to that in the pre-cyclonic period (19 May 2020) illustrating the impact of the cyclonic hazard.

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“…Globally, approximately 68% of the earth's landmass is altered by anthropogenic land-use practices, related to an increased transformation to cropland from forests during 1700-2000 globally (Foley et al, 2005;Pielke et al, 2011). LULCC affects biogeochemistry (Mahowald et al, 2017), biophysical (Duveiller et al, 2020), and biogeographical (Hibbard et al, 2010) attributes of the terrestrial surface (Kabat et al, 2004;Govorushko, 2016) and also modifies the concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere, thereby affecting the atmospheric chemical composition (Pielke et al, 1998;Hibbard et al, 2010;Lal et al, 2020a;Lal et al, 2021a). The changes in biodiversity in the form of alteration of flora and fauna by the introduction of invasive species aggravate the bio-geographical composition on the surface (Clavero, 2016;Forstmaier et al, 2020;Saikia et al, 2020;Lal et al, 2021b).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying Temperature and Precipitation Change Caused by Land Cover Change: A Case Study of India Using the WRF Model

Lal

Shekhar

Kumar

2021

Front. Environ. Sci.

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The large-scale Land-Uses and Land-Cover Changes (LULCC) in India in the past several decades is primarily driven by anthropogenic factors that influence the climate from regional to global scales. Therefore, to understand the LULCC over the Indian region from 2002 to 2015 and its implications on temperature and precipitation, we performed Weather Research Forecast (WRF) model simulation using the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) reanalysis data for the period 2009 to 2015 as a boundary condition with 2009 as spin-up time. The results showed moderate forest cover loss in major parts of northeast India, and the Himalayan region during 2002–2015. Such large LULC changes, primarily significant alteration of grassland and agriculture from the forest, led to increased precipitation due to increasing evapotranspiration (ET) similar to the forest-dominated regions. An increase in the precipitation patterns (>300 mm) was observed in the parts of eastern and western Himalayas, western Ghats, and the northwestern part of central India, while most parts of northeast Himalayas have an exceptional increase in precipitation (∼100–150 mm), which shows similar agreement with an increase of leaf area index (LAI) by ∼15%. The overall phenomenon leads to a greening-induced ET enhancement that increases atmospheric water vapor content and promotes downwind precipitation. In the case of temperature, warming was observed in the central to eastern parts of India, while cooling was observed in the central and western parts. The increase in vegetated areas over northwest India led to an increase in ET, which ultimately resulted in decreased temperature and increased precipitation. The study highlights the changes in temperature and precipitation in recent decades because of large LULCC and necessitates the formulation of sustainable land use-based strategies to control meteorological variability and augment ecological sustainability.

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Lockdown to Contain the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Opportunity to Create a Less Polluted Environment in India

Cited by 16 publications

References 11 publications

COVID-19 Lockdown and the Aerosphere in India: Lessons Learned on How to Reduce Air Pollution

COVID-19 Lockdown and the Aerosphere in India: Lessons Learned on How to Reduce Air Pollution

Influence of Super Cyclone “Amphan” in the Indian Subcontinent amid COVID-19 Pandemic

Quantifying Temperature and Precipitation Change Caused by Land Cover Change: A Case Study of India Using the WRF Model

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