Marked rebound of agricultural fire emissions in Asia after the outbreak of COVID-19

Abstract

East and South Asia are the major hotspots of crop straw burning worldwide with profound impacts on air quality and climate change. The Northeast China Plain and Punjab, India are two of the most fertile areas for crop production and have large-scale agricultural fires during post-harvest seasons. Leveraging established fire emission databases and satellite-retrieved agricultural fire spots, we show that while the years 2018 and 2019 record low agricultural fire emissions in both Northeast China Plain and Punjab probably due to implementation of crop straw sustainable management, the fire emissions markedly rebound in 2020, reaching about 190% and 150% of the 2019 levels, respectively. The COVID-19 lockdown measures somewhat disrupted the eco-friendly crop straw management through the restrictions on labor and transportation availability, such that farmers may have to burn off crop wastes to clear up the lands. We further demonstrate that the increased fire emissions in the Northeast China Plain had resulted in serious particulate matter pollutions during the fire season in spring 2020, as opposed to considerable decreases of particles from fossil fuel emissions caused by the COVID-19 lockdown. This study suggests the unintended impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on the agricultural sector and human health.