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Appraisal of COVID-19 lockdown and unlocking effects on the air quality of North India

The COVID-19 pandemic lockdown supposedly provided a ‘window’ of reinstatement to natural resources including the air quality, but the scenario after the phased unlocking is yet to be explored. Consequently, here we evaluated the status of air quality during the 8th phase of unlocking of COVID-19 lo...

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Autores principales: Shukla, Saurabh, Khan, Ramsha, Saxena, Abhishek, Sekar, Selvam, Ali, Esmat F., Shaheen, Sabry M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8455374/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34560058
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2021.112107
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author Shukla, Saurabh
Khan, Ramsha
Saxena, Abhishek
Sekar, Selvam
Ali, Esmat F.
Shaheen, Sabry M.
author_facet Shukla, Saurabh
Khan, Ramsha
Saxena, Abhishek
Sekar, Selvam
Ali, Esmat F.
Shaheen, Sabry M.
author_sort Shukla, Saurabh
collection PubMed
description The COVID-19 pandemic lockdown supposedly provided a ‘window’ of reinstatement to natural resources including the air quality, but the scenario after the phased unlocking is yet to be explored. Consequently, here we evaluated the status of air quality during the 8th phase of unlocking of COVID-19 lockdown (January 2021) at three locations of North India. The first site (S1) was located at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana-PPCB; the second site (S2) at Yamunapuram, Bulandshahr-UPPCB; and the third site (S3) at Okhla Phase-2, Delhi-DPCC. The levels of PM2.5 showed a significant increase of 525.2%, 281.2%, and 185.0% at sites S1, S2 and S3, respectively in the unlock 8 (January 2021), in comparison to its concentration in the lockdown phase. Coherently, the levels of PM10 also showed a prominent increase of 284.5%, 189.1%, and 103.9% at sites S3, S1, and S2, respectively during the unlock 8 as compared to its concentration in the lockdown phase. This rise in the concentration of PM2.5 and PM10 could be primarily attributed to the use of biomass fuel, industrial and vehicular emissions, stubble burning considering the agricultural activities at sites S1 and S2. Site S3 is a major industrial hub and has the highest population density among all three sites. Consequently, the maximum increase (295.7%) in the NO(2) levels during the unlock 8 was witnessed at site S3. The strong correlation between PM2.5, PM10, and CO, along with the PM2.5/PM10 ratio confirmed the similar origin of these pollutants at all the three sites. The improvements in the levels of air quality during the COVID-19 lockdown were major overtaken during the various phases of unlocking consequent to the initiation of anthropogenic processes.
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spelling pubmed-84553742021-09-22 Appraisal of COVID-19 lockdown and unlocking effects on the air quality of North India Shukla, Saurabh Khan, Ramsha Saxena, Abhishek Sekar, Selvam Ali, Esmat F. Shaheen, Sabry M. Environ Res Article The COVID-19 pandemic lockdown supposedly provided a ‘window’ of reinstatement to natural resources including the air quality, but the scenario after the phased unlocking is yet to be explored. Consequently, here we evaluated the status of air quality during the 8th phase of unlocking of COVID-19 lockdown (January 2021) at three locations of North India. The first site (S1) was located at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana-PPCB; the second site (S2) at Yamunapuram, Bulandshahr-UPPCB; and the third site (S3) at Okhla Phase-2, Delhi-DPCC. The levels of PM2.5 showed a significant increase of 525.2%, 281.2%, and 185.0% at sites S1, S2 and S3, respectively in the unlock 8 (January 2021), in comparison to its concentration in the lockdown phase. Coherently, the levels of PM10 also showed a prominent increase of 284.5%, 189.1%, and 103.9% at sites S3, S1, and S2, respectively during the unlock 8 as compared to its concentration in the lockdown phase. This rise in the concentration of PM2.5 and PM10 could be primarily attributed to the use of biomass fuel, industrial and vehicular emissions, stubble burning considering the agricultural activities at sites S1 and S2. Site S3 is a major industrial hub and has the highest population density among all three sites. Consequently, the maximum increase (295.7%) in the NO(2) levels during the unlock 8 was witnessed at site S3. The strong correlation between PM2.5, PM10, and CO, along with the PM2.5/PM10 ratio confirmed the similar origin of these pollutants at all the three sites. The improvements in the levels of air quality during the COVID-19 lockdown were major overtaken during the various phases of unlocking consequent to the initiation of anthropogenic processes. Elsevier Inc. 2022-03 2021-09-22 /pmc/articles/PMC8455374/ /pubmed/34560058 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2021.112107 Text en © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Article
Shukla, Saurabh
Khan, Ramsha
Saxena, Abhishek
Sekar, Selvam
Ali, Esmat F.
Shaheen, Sabry M.
Appraisal of COVID-19 lockdown and unlocking effects on the air quality of North India
title Appraisal of COVID-19 lockdown and unlocking effects on the air quality of North India
title_full Appraisal of COVID-19 lockdown and unlocking effects on the air quality of North India
title_fullStr Appraisal of COVID-19 lockdown and unlocking effects on the air quality of North India
title_full_unstemmed Appraisal of COVID-19 lockdown and unlocking effects on the air quality of North India
title_short Appraisal of COVID-19 lockdown and unlocking effects on the air quality of North India
title_sort appraisal of covid-19 lockdown and unlocking effects on the air quality of north india
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8455374/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34560058
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2021.112107
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