Impact of COVID-19 Lockdowns on Air Quality in the South Asian Region

Abstract

Air pollution has become a common problem in most urbanized cities in the world. South Asia is a pollution hot spot since most countries in the region qualify to be categorized as developing nations with poor monitoring and control of industrial-related pollution. The recent outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic led many countries to lockdown to control the spread of the virus. This resulted in the complete shut-down of most sources of industrial emissions and a heavy reduction in vehicular emissions. Accordingly, most South Asian countries witness a notable reduction in air pollution and significant improvement in air quality. This study measures and compares the change in pollution levels in the first six months of 2020 while using 2018, and 2019 as points of reference. The analysis includes an investigation of daily, weekly, and monthly trends of air pollution concentrating on PM2.5 levels in six countries of the region. Based on the observations of the analysis, significant factors affecting the level of change in air quality were identified. Most cities recorded significant change in the pollution level only after 30 days into the lockdown while the Source of pollution, topography, and location were identified as the main factors which affected the dispersion rate of pollution.