International Journal of Environmental Health Research

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cije20

Impact of lockdown measures during COVID-19 on

air quality– A case study of India

Pratima Kumari & Durga Toshniwal

To cite this article: Pratima Kumari & Durga Toshniwal (2020): Impact of lockdown measures
during COVID-19 on air quality– A case study of India, International Journal of Environmental
Health Research, DOI: 10.1080/09603123.2020.1778646

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09603123.2020.1778646

Published online: 16 Jun 2020.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 1633

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Citing articles: 1 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=cije20
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH RESEARCH
https://doi.org/10.1080/09603123.2020.1778646

ARTICLE

Impact of lockdown measures during COVID-19 on air quality–

A case study of India
Pratima Kumari and Durga Toshniwal
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, India

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

A novel infectious coronavirus disease (COVID-19) identified in late 2019 has Received 26 May 2020
now been labelled as a global pandemic by World Health Organization Accepted 1 June 2020
(WHO). The COVID-19 outbreak has shown some positive impacts on the KEYWORDS
natural environment. In present work, India is taken as a case study to COVID-19; air quality;
evaluate the effect of lockdown on air quality of three Indian cities. The lockdown; India
variation in concentration of key air pollutants including PM10 , PM2:5 , NO2 , SO2
and O3 during two phases, pre-lockdown and post-lockdown phases, was
analysed. The concentration of PM10 , PM2:5 , NO2 and SO2 reduced by 55%,
49%, 60% and 19%, and 44%, 37%, 78% and 39% for Delhi and Mumbai,
respectively, during post-lockdown phase. Overall, the findings in present
study may provide confidence to the stakeholders involved in air quality
policy development that a significant improvement in air quality can be
achieved in future if better pollution control plans are strictly executed.

Introduction
The entire world is going through a very distressing situation due to the spread of a novel infectious
disease of the coronavirus family (COVID-19). The World Health Organization (WHO) has
declared the COVID-19 as a ‘global pandemic’ on 11 March 2020, based on the increasing rate of
COVID-19 cases across the globe. Subsequently, by the end of March, the governments of many
countries placed their countries on lockdown as a containment strategy. As of 1 June 2020, 215
countries are affected by COVID-19 having more than 6.2 million cases, with 374,229 confirmed
deaths worldwide (WHO 2020b).
In India, the first confirmed case of COVID-19 was reported in the state of Kerela on
30 January 2020 (WHO 2020a). Later, it spread to the other parts of the country, and 22 new
cases were recognized on 4 March 2020. The first death in the country due to COVID-19 was
reported on 12 March 2020 (WHO 2020a). As the number of COVID-19 cases crossed 500, prime
minister asked all citizens across the country to observe a 14 hours public curfew on 22 March 2020.
Following this, the government of India ordered a complete nationwide lockdown for 21 days,
starting from the midnight of 24 March 2020. To handle the worsening of pandemic in country,
government urged the Indian states and citizens to strictly follow the social distancing measures as
a preventive strategy (https://www.mha.gov.in/).
Under the nationwide lockdown, all places of social gatherings such as restaurants, cinemas,
schools, shopping complexes, educational institutions were closed. Employees and students were
being asked to work from home to avoid crowds. All types of transportation services, including rail,
road and air, were suspended with exceptions for essential services. Furthermore, nearly all
manufacturing and industrial activities were shutdown. The COVID-19 outbreak led to the

CONTACT Pratima Kumari pkumari@cs.iitr.ac.in; Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, India
© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 P. KUMARI AND D. TOSHNIWAL

Table 1. Summary of selected air quality stations in the present study.

Locations Stations Latitude Longitude
Delhi Anand Vihar 28.65 77.32
Punjabi Bagh 28.57 77.12
Dwarka 28.61 77.03
RK Puram 28.56 77.17
Mumbai Borivali East 19.23 72.85
Colaba 18.90 72.81
Powai 19.11 72.90
Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (T2) 19.09 72.87
Singrauli Vindhyachal STPS 24.09 82.67

deserted streets and empty roads as everyone, except those performing basic services, was asked to
stay indoors during the lockdown. The complete lockdown has negatively affected the economy of
the country; however, it also led to a dramatic reduction in air pollution due to limited transporta­
tion and economic activities (Gautam 2020).
In the present study, we assessed the variation in air quality data across three different cities in
India (namely, Delhi, Mumbai and Singrauli) during the first phase of lockdown (i.e. from
25 March 2020 to 15 April 2020) in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Data collection
To study the impact of lockdown on air quality, the data from three different Indian cities, i.e.,
Delhi, Mumbai and Singrauli located in northern, western and eastern Indian regions, respectively,
were analyzed. The air quality data for four stations of Delhi, four stations of Mumbai and single
station of Singrauli for the period from 1 March 2020 to 15 April 2020, was obtained from Central
Pollution Control Board (CPCB) online portal (https://app.cpcbccr.com/ccr/#/caaqm-dashboard-
all/caaqm-landing). Delhi and Mumbai are metropolitan cities of India that are enlisted in the most
polluted cities of the world (CPCB 2014). Delhi and Mumbai are saturated with different types of
industries, including textile, electronics, pharmaceutical, leather industries (Aggarwal and
Toshniwal 2019). In addition, these cities have a high population index, with most of the population
is working, which contributes to the heavy road traffic. The industrial emissions and regular day-to-
day traffic are the two main factors of air pollution in Delhi and Mumbai. On the other hand,
Singrauli has a low population index as compared to Delhi and Mumbai. However, Singrauli is
home to several coal-fired power plants, due to which Singrauli comes under one of the most
polluted cities in India. The details of the selected stations from each city are given in Table 1. These
stations were chosen because they well represent and cover the cities.
The hourly concentration of five key air pollutants including particulate matter with a diameter
between 2.5 and 10 μm (PM10 ), particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 μm or less (PM2:5 ),
nitrogen dioxide ðNO2 Þ, sulphur dioxide ðSO2 Þ and ozone ðO3 Þ have been used in the present study.
The air quality trends have been studied in two phases: pre-lockdown phase (1 March to
24 March 2020) and post-lockdown phase (25 March to 15April 2020). The daily averages (24 h)
of PM10 , PM2:5 , NO2 and SO2 , and daily maximum 8 h average of O3 have been calculated to analyze
the change in their mean concentration between pre-lockdown and post-lockdown phases.
In addition, European Space Agency (ESA) developed Copernicus Sentinel-5 Precursor
Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) measured NO2 data has been analyzed to assess
the NO2 concentration levels in the troposphere (Veefkind et al. 2012). For this purpose, Google
Earth Engine has been utilized to plot the NO2 data over the map of India (Gorelick et al. 2017).
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH RESEARCH 3

Results and discussion

The nationwide lockdown implemented in India since 25 March 2020 has significantly improved
the air quality in the country. In this section, we present the air quality data analysis in different
periods at three different locations. Figure 1 represents the daily concentration of crucial air
pollutants during pre-lockdown (01 March to 24 March 2020) and post-lockdown (25 March to
15 April 2020) phases for Delhi, Mumbai and Singrauli.
In case of Delhi, a significant reduction in daily average values of PM10 , PM2:5 , NO2 and SO2 can
be observed in post-lockdown phase (Figure 1). However, the concentration of O3 increased in the
post-lockdown phase. Daily average PM10 values were within National Ambient Air Quality
Standards (NAAQS) (Aneja et al. 2001) specified daily standard limit of 100μg=m3 for 16 days
out of 22 days of post-lockdown phase, while NO2 and SO2 levels were around 80% less than their
daily standard values specified by the NAAQS during the post-lockdown phase. Figure 2(a)
compares the mean concentration of air pollutants in pre-lockdown and post-lockdown phases.
The restrictions placed on transport sector, industrial and commercial activities have significantly
reduced the key air pollutants (PM10 , PM2:5 and NO2 ) in post-lockdown phase. Overall, PM10 and

Figure 1. Daily average (24 h) concentration of PM10 , PM2:5 , NO2 , SO2 and daily maximum 8 h average of O3 between March 1 and
April 25 in three Indian cities: Delhi, Mumbai and Singrauli.
4 P. KUMARI AND D. TOSHNIWAL

Figure 2. Variation in mean concentrations of PM10 , PM2:5 , NO2 , SO2 and O3 during pre-lockdown and post-lockdown phases in (a)
Delhi, (b) Mumbai and (c) Singrauli.

PM2:5 levels were reduced by 55.01% and 49.34%, respectively, during the lockdown period as
compared to pre-lockdown period. The similar reduction in concentration of PM10 and PM2:5
primarily attributed to the reduced industrial and combustion activities in Delhi (Figure 3). Since
80% of NOx in Delhi originates from transport sector, restrictions on transportation lead to
a reduction of 60.11% in NO2 during the lockdown phase (TERI, 2018). However, a low reduction
of 19.51% in SO2 levels during post-lockdown phase was observed because the main source of SO2
in Delhi are power plants that remained operational in the lockdown period TERI. Noticeably, O3
concentration increased by 37.35% in post-lockdown phase due to the following reasons. Firstly, as
the emission of O3 precursors (i.e. NOx and volatile organic compounds (VOCs)) extensively
reduced in lockdown phase, it might cause O3 to increase (Sharma et al. 2016; Filonchyk and Yan
2019; Filonchyk and Hurynovich 2020); secondly, O3 reacts with nitrogen oxide (NO) and gets
degraded by the titration process as follows: NO+O3 =NO2 +O2 . The decrease in NO levels reduces
O3 consumption, which results in increment in O3 concentrations; thirdly, due to the onset of
summers, the temperature has started to increase with a minimum and maximum temperature of
15°C and 27°C on 1 March 2020 to 24°C and 40°C on 15 April 2020, leading to an increase in O3
concentrations.
The impact of lockdown is clearly visible in Mumbai. All key air pollutant (except O3 ) has shown
a decline in trends during post-lockdown phase (Figure 1). In Mumbai, PM10 , PM2:5 , NO2 and SO2
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH RESEARCH 5

Figure 3. Percentage change in concentration of PM10 , PM2:5 , NO2 , SO2 and O3 during pre-lockdown and post-lockdown phases in
Delhi, Mumbai and Singrauli.

levels remained below NAAQS on all days during the lockdown. It can be observed that the mean
concentrations of PM10 , PM2:5 , NO2 and SO2 were low in post-lockdown phase as compared to pre-
lockdown phase (Figure 2(b)). Similar to Delhi, a considerable drop has been observed in the
concentration of PM10 (44.61%), PM2:5 (37.35%) and NO2 (78.12%) in post-lockdown phase in
Mumbai. The average SO2 levels in Mumbai were reduced by 39.01%, majorly due to shutdown of
industries. As per emission inventory of Mumbai (CPCB 2010), 39 types of industries (excluding
power plants) contribute to over 50% of SO2 (CPCB 2010). The high reduction in SO2 levels in
Mumbai during the lockdown period indicates that SO2 emissions from coal-based power plants in
Delhi might be playing a more dominant role in Delhi as compared to Mumbai. Similar to Delhi, the
O3 concentration has also shown an increment of 20.65% in Mumbai during post-lockdown phase.
In Sigrauli, the impact of lockdown on air quality was less favorable as compared to Delhi and
Mumbai. The concentration of key pollutants (i.e. PM10 , PM2:5 , SO2 and O3 ) has shown an increasing
trend during post-lockdown phase (Figure 1). The daily average levels of NO2 and SO2 mostly
remained below the NAAQS reference value on all days during the lockdown. However, the PM10
and PM2:5 levels exceeded the NAAQS reference value during the post-lockdown phase. It can be
noticed that Singrauli is a high SO2 city as compared to Delhi and Mumbai, with most of this pollutant
arising from the largest coal-based power plant established in the town.
All pollutants (except NO2 ) have shown higher mean concentration levels during post-lockdown
phase, as compared to pre-lockdown phase (Figure 2 (c)). NO2 levels were reduced by 12.5% during
lockdown phase; however, the NO2 reduction in Singrauli is low as compared to Delhi and Mumbai.
Singrauli has shown a significant increment in the concentration of PM10 (58.85%), PM2:5 (15.27%),
SO2 (11.82%) and O3 (35.07%), during lockdown phase. The increment in mean concentration of
PM10 , PM2:5 , SO2 and O3 , and relatively low reduction in NO2 levels in post-lockdown phase can be
associated with the ongoing coal-based power plants in Singrauli. It is worth noting that the largest
power station of India, namely Vindhyachal Super Thermal Power Station, is situated in Singrauli,
which remained operational during lockdown phase.
6 P. KUMARI AND D. TOSHNIWAL

Figure 4. Changes in average concentration of nitrogen dioxide ðNO2 Þ measured by TROPOMI-ESA in India. Bottom-left panel: 01
March to24 March 2020 (pre-lockdown phase); bottom-right panel: 25 March to 15 April 2020 (post-lockdown phase) and top
panel: same time periods in 2019.

To clearly demonstrate the changes in NO2 levels, the satellite map of India is developed using the
tropospheric NO2 concentrations data produced from the ESA Sentinel-5P satellite using TROPOMI
instrument for pre-lockdown (01 March to 24 March 2020) and post-lockdown (25 March to 15
April 2020) phases and the same period in 2019 (Figure 4). Figure 4 indicates a decrement in NO2 levels
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH RESEARCH 7

during post-lockdown phase as compared to pre-lockdown phase and the same period of 2019. The
NO2 concentration loads over Delhi and Mumbai in post-lockdown phase reduced by 65–75% in as
compared to pre-lockdown phase. Similarly, compared with the same period of 2019, the NO2
concentration was decreased by 40–50%. Interestingly, Figure 4 shows a high tropospheric concentra­
tion of NO2 over Singrauli in lockdown period, due to the presence of the largest coal-based power
station.

Conclusion
COVID-19 is a severe threat to the world public health security and global economy; however, it has
shown some positive impact on nature as pollution is reducing and earth is reviving itself. The present
study comprehensively studied the effect of complete nationwide lockdown since 25 March 2020 on
air quality of three major Indian cities: Delhi, Mumbai and Singrauli. A significant reduction in
concentration of PM10 , PM2:5 and NO2 was observed for Delhi and Mumbai during lockdown
period. On contrary, O3 concentration was increased during lockdown, which could be due to less
consumption of O3 in titration because of a reduction in NOx emission. Overall, a significant
improvement in air quality of Delhi and Mumbai was observed during the lockdown phase as
compared to pre-lockdown phase and same period of 2019. However, Singrauli has not shown
much reduction in air pollution due to the operational coal-based power plants.
The preliminary analysis of air quality data in present study shows that the COVID-19 pandemic
may be considered as a ‘blessing in disguise,’ where air quality is improving and earth is reviving
itself. This reduction in air pollution due to controlled emission of major air pollutants can
significantly minimize several health issues such as respiratory problems, cardiovascular illness,
asthma, premature deaths, etc. These positive impact of lockdown on air pollution can provide
confidence to the government and authorities that the implementation of strict air quality policies
and emission control strategies can significantly improve the environmental and human health.

Acknowledgments
Authors would like to acknowledge Ministry of Human Resource and Development, Government of India for the
fellowship.

Disclosure statement
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

ORCID
Pratima Kumari http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3370-500X

References
Aggarwal A, Toshniwal D. 2019. Detection of anomalous nitrogen dioxide (no2) concentration in urban air of india
using proximity and clustering methods. J Air Waste Manage Assoc. 69(7):805–822. doi:10.1080/
10962247.2019.1577314.
Aneja VP, Agarwal A, Roelle PA, Phillips SB, Tong Q, Watkins N, Yablonsky R. 2001. Measurements and analysis of
criteria pollutants in new delhi, india. Environ Int. 27(1):35–42. doi:10.1016/S0160-4120(01)00051-4.
CPCB. 2010. Air quality monitoring, emission inventory and source apportionment study for indian cities. Central
Pollution Control Board.
CPCB. 2014. CPCB 2014. National air quality index report. Central Pollution Control Board, New Delhi (India).;
[accessed 2020 May 1]. https://app.cpcbccr.com/ccr_docs/FINAL-REPORT_AQI_.pdf.
8 P. KUMARI AND D. TOSHNIWAL

Filonchyk M, Hurynovich V. 2020. Validation of MODIS aerosol products with AERONET measurements of
different land cover types in areas over eastern europe and china. J Geovisual Spat Anal. 4:10. doi:10.1007/
s41651-020-00052-9.
Filonchyk M, Yan H. 2019. Urban air pollution monitoring by ground-based stations and satellite data,©. Springer.
Gautam S. 2020. The influence of COVID-19 on air quality in india: A boon or inutile. Bull Environ Contam Toxicol.
1.
Gorelick N, Hancher M, Dixon M, Ilyushchenko S, Thau D, Moore R. 2017. Google earth engine: planetary-scale
geospatial analysis for everyone. Remote Sens Environ. 202:18–27. doi:10.1016/j.rse.2017.06.031.
Sharma S, Chatani S, Mahtta R, Goel A, Kumar A. 2016. Sensitivity analysis of ground level ozone in india using
WRF-CMAQ models. Atmos Environ. 131:29–40. doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2016.01.036.
TERI. 2018. TERI Emission Inventory, 2018.
Veefkind J, Aben I, McMullan K, Förster H, De Vries J, Otter G, Claas J, Eskes H, De Haan J, Kleipool Q, et al. 2012.
TROPOMI on the ESA sentinel-5 precursor: A GMES mission for global observations of the atmospheric
composition for climate, air quality and ozone layer applications. Remote Sens Environ. 120:70–83.
doi:10.1016/j.rse.2011.09.027.
WHO. 2020a. World Health Organization, Coronavirus Disease (COVID-2019) India Situation Report – 1; [accessed
2020 Jan 31]. https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/wrindia/india-situation-report-1.pdf?sfvrsn=5ca2a672_0.
WHO. 2020b. World Health Organization, Coronavirus Disease (COVID-2019) Situation Reports– Situation
Report – 116; [accessed 2020 May 15]. https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports
/20200515-covid-19-sitrep-116.pdf?sfvrsn=8dd60956_2.