Effect of coronavirus lockdowns on the ambient seismic noise levels in Gujarat, northwest India

The Covid-19 pandemic created havoc and forced lockdowns in almost all the countries worldwide, to inhibit social spreading. In India as well, as a precautionary measure, complete and partial lockdowns were announced in phases during March 25 to May 31, 2020. The restricted human activities led to a drastic reduction in seismic background noise in the high frequency range of 1–20 Hz, representative of cultural noise. In this study, we analyse the effect of anthropogenic activity on the Earth vibrations, utilizing ambient noise recorded at twelve broadband seismographs installed in different environmental and geological conditions in Gujarat. We find that the lockdowns caused 1–19 dB decrease in seismic noise levels. The impact of restricted anthropogenic activities is predominantly visible during the daytime in urban areas, in the vicinity of industries and/or highways. A 27–79% reduction in seismic noise ground displacement (d(rms)) is observed in daytime during the lockdown, in populated areas. However, data from station MOR reveals a drastic decrease in d(rms) amplitude both during the day (79%) and night times (87%) since factories in this area operate round the clock. The noise at stations located in remote areas and that due to microseisms, shows negligible variation.