COVID-19 lockdowns improve air quality in the South-East Asian regions, as seen by the remote sensing satellites

Abstract

The appearance of COVID-19 in December, 2019 in China and its rapid spread all over the globe, forced the governments to severely curb the social and economic activities of their respective countries. Barring the essential services, most of the business activities and transport sectors have been suspended and an unprecedented lockdown imposed over major economies in the world. South-East Asian regions, such as India and China, were no different. As a result, the pollutant level has gone down over these regions, and the air quality improved somewhat better than it was before the lockdown. This study uses satellite retrievals and attempts to estimate the extent of the reduction of major pollutants, like carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and sulfur dioxide (SO2) in India and China during January to April, 2020. We have calculated anomalies of pollutants during the lockdown period relative to their long-term records. NO2, which has significant emissions from the transport sector, is reduced on an average by 17% over India and 25% over China. SO2, which mainly emits from power plants, shows significant reductions (approx. 17%) especially over the Eastern sector of India. CO is found to be reduced by 6.5% over north-central China. The differential reduction was attributed to man made versus natural activities. This study is helpful to policy makers in mitigating the air-pollution on a long-term perspective.