Less air pollution, one of nature's most ideal lockdown saga

The COVID-19 lockdown might have breathed a whiff of clean air into our environment, but a short-term change in air quality may not help the world in the long run.

The pandemic outbreak has brought lives to a complete standstill, be it in metros, big or small cities, and even villages. And this has resulted in an improvement in air qualities in several places, according to the latest Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) report.

Metropolitan cities are more prone to pollution due to more urban activities and vehicular traffic. But they are not the only ones suffering from high levels of air pollution, showed a report by the CPCB.

In fact, in the list of 122 cities identified by the environment ministry for violation of air quality norms prescribed by the World Health Organization, the top 10 cities feature only two metros — Delhi and Ahmedabad. Dhanbad and Noida top the list with PM10 levels at 264 micrograms, denoted as μg, followed by Ghaziabad (245 μg) and Delhi (243 μg).

Pollution level is calculated based on proportion of particulate matter (PM10) and Nitrogen Oxide (NO2) in the air. Particulate matter are hazardous particles of size 10 micrometers (μm) or less that are present in the air.

Of these 122 cities, 32 are located in only two states: Maharashtra (18) and Uttar Pradesh (15), followed by Andhra Pradesh which has polluted 13 cities. Seventeen of these cities have PM10 levels above 200µg, which is considered to be extremely hazardous. Uttar Pradesh alone accounts for 11 of these 17 cities.

Besides, 52 cities have reported PM10 levels in the range of 100-200 µg, according to the environment ministry. The permissible level of PM10 is 60µg per cubic meter, as per the ministry.

Gulbarga in Karnataka tops the list of cities having hazardous NO2 levels in the air. Even this list features only two metros — Pune (75 µg) and Navi Mumbai (47 µg). The permissible level of NO2 in air is 40 µg per cubic meter.

Delhi-NCR is the most polluted area with three adjacent cities with the highest pollution levels. Surprisingly, cities in the hill states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh too fall under this category.

The CPCB, which assessed the air quality of 115 cities during the lockdown, observed that 90 cities have reported ‘good’ or ‘satisfactory’ levels of air quality, compared to just 50 cities before the lockdown. Ten cities in the Delhi and Uttar Pradesh region that saw deterioration in the air quality was attributed to the dust storms during that period.

However, Ravindra Sinha, who runs the NGO HiRWA in Pune, says that this short-term change in the air quality isn’t going to help the world in the long run.

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“It was like a vacation or a temporary relief for nature and things will be soon back to normal. This will come back even stronger I feel. Depending on different factors like traffic jams, industrial activities, construction work, etc. each city will have its own factors that will again deteriorate the air quality,” he said.

“Now that people have become used to breathing good quality air, they will have to face the worst effects of normalcy (when it deteriorates again). People will see a lot of health problems as their body’s defence mechanisms would have changed a lot in the last three months,” he added.

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The drop in particulate matter in the air, or pollution levels as we call it, was attributed to the halting of construction activities, less road dust re-suspension as well as the curbs on industrial activities, in the report.

The only positive thing that Sinha is looking at is the availability of more data for the research work which will help researchers and policymakers for putting up a better fight against pollution. “Also, this situation has created a base for an ideal scenario of nature,” he concluded.