COVID-19 persuaded lockdown impact on local environmental restoration in Pakistan

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic adversely affected human beings. The novel coronavirus has claimed millions of lives all over the globe. Most countries around the world, including Pakistan, restricted people’s social activities and ordered strict lockdowns throughout the country, to control the fatality of the novel coronavirus. The persuaded lockdown impact on the local environment was estimated. In the present study, we assessed air quality changes in four cities of Pakistan, namely Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, and Peshawar, based on particulate matter (PM(2.5)), using “Temtop Airing 1000,” which is capable of detecting and quantifying PM(2.5). The Air Quality Index (AQI) was evaluated in three specific time spans: the COVID-19 pandemic pre- and post-lockdown period (January 1, 2020 to March 20, 2020, and May 16, 2020 to June 30, 2020 respectively), and the COVID-19 pandemic period (March 21 2020 to May 15, 2020). We compared land-monitored AQI levels for the above three periods of time. For validation, air quality was navigated by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) satellite during the first semester (January 1 to June 30) of 2019 and 2020. It is seen that the concentration of PM(2.5) was considerably reduced in 2020 (more than 50%), ranging from ~ 0.05 to 0.3 kg⋅m(3), compared to the same period in 2019. The results revealed that the AQI was considerably reduced during the lockdown period. This finding is a very promising as the inhabitants of the planet Earth can be guaranteed the possibility of a green environment in the future.