COVID-19 pandemic lockdown: effects on the air quality of South Asia

Abstract

The world is facing an unexpected, like never before, situation due to COVID-19. The measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic are to incorporate lockdown, social distancing, disconnection, and home isolation. Lockdown was enforced by the various governments of the South Asian countries, which include non-working of all the businesses and assembling units, with limited access to the outer world pertaining to essential commodities. However, During the COVID-19 pandemic, an uncommon positive impact is noteworthy for worldwide abatement in air-contamination levels. Principally, specialists have estimated significant improvement in air quality and a remarkable decrease in concentration levels of various harmful gases like sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO), and ozone (O3). In this article, there is an analysis made on the impact of Covid-19 lockdown on the air quality of the South Asian region i.e. (that is) the various environmental parameters along with others namely aerosol, temperature, and particulate matter (PM2.5, PM10). The work includes the refining and analysis of crude information of this present (2020) and the past year of different toxic gases and parameters of air pollutants. These have been obtained from pollution control boards of respective South Asian nations alongside information and satellite pictures from the UN Environment Program and Space Administration for correlation of various parameters. It has been observed that there is a sharp dip in the pollutant concentration in South Asia. This examination altogether will be valuable data to environmentalists and experts to make the future policies for improving air quality and the environment.