Impact of social lockdown due to COVID-19 on environmental and health risk indices in India

Abstract

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) spread across the globe through the human transmission. The World Health Organization suggested social distancing to curb the community spread. After national social lockdown started in India, air quality improved drastically. This further hypothesized to influence the environment and human health, and this study is positively the first to weigh it using multiple indices. The calculated environmental indices are photochemical ozone creation potential (POCP), acidification potential (AP), and eutrophication potential (EP). The cancer risk, chronic health index (CHI), and acute health index (AHI) were considered to calculate the health risk. The spatial trend change in the air pollution reflecting on these indices are calculated for four Indian megacities Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Kolkata. Temporal variation was accounted for monthly (2019 vs 2020), one-week and two-weeks period during the social lockdown. The results showed a significant decrease in environmental and health risk during the lockdown due to a corresponding decrement in air pollution. The decrease in the particulate matter was found to play a vital role in altering the air pollution mediated risks of interest. Delhi showed a maximum difference in POCP and Acute HI by recording a dip of 70.79% and 43.53% respectively in 2020 during lockdown. The maximum reduction in health risk indices was 41%, 31%, 17%, 19% for Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Kolkata. Bangalore recorded the maximum decline in EP, Cancer risk, Chronic HI by 66.66%, 58.62%, and 58.76% in 2020 compared to 2019. A maximum fall in AP was seen in Kolkata by 57.23% in 2020 among all cities. The connection between these drop-in indices and the cause of air pollutants were well discussed. This present paper gives more in-depth insights into air pollution's effect on environmental and health parameters by connecting and converging various air pollution aspects into a single scale. This study also enlightens the importance of controlling air pollution to have a better environment and healthy life to attain sustainable development.

Keywords: Air quality; COVID-19 epidemic; Environmental impact assessment and indices; Health risk indices; Lockdown in India; Pandemic; Social distance; Sustainability development.

Graphical abstract

Fig. 1

Trend variation of indices with air pollutants.

Fig. 2

Monthly Average (a–h) and One-week Average (i–p) of indices for different stations in 4 cities before and during the social lockdown.

Fig. 3

Monthly (a–d), averaging of all stations monthly (e–h), one-week (i–l) and two-weeks (m–p) average of indices for different cities PB – Punjab Bagh, SB – Silk Board, CU – Central University and V – Victoria.

Fig. 4

One-week average (• 2019, • 2020) (9 points are average of March 4–10,11–17, 18–24, 25–31, April 1–7, 8–14, 15–21, 22-8, 29-May 5, respectively).

Fig. 5

(a–e) Monthly average 2019 vs 2020 in Delhi (f–l): Weekly average of before and during the lockdown in Delhi.

Fig. 6

(a–f) Monthly average 2019 vs 2020 in Bangalore Fig. 6(g–l): Weekly average of before and during the lockdown in Bangalore.

Fig. 7

(a–f) Monthly average 2019 vs 2020 in Hyderabad Fig. 7(g–l): Weekly average of before and during the lockdown in Hyderabad.

Fig. 8

(a–f) Monthly average 2019 vs 2020 in Kolkata Fig. 8(g–l): Weekly average of before and during the lockdown in Kolkata.