Air Quality Index with Particulate Matter (PM2.5) Improved after National Lockdown during COVID-19 Outbreak across Pakistan

Abstract

For Pakistan and as well as for world community COVID-19 is a huge tragedy. The defensive actions plan of Pakistan to contain COVID-19 pandemic includes self-isolation, home quarantine, social distancing and lockdown. The lockdown strategy adopted by the different provincial governments which involve non-functioning and closure of all the commerce business trade centers and industrial units. However, as a blessing in disguise, these measures have a positive effect on the environment in terms of reduction in toxic gasses like nitrogen dioxide, aerosols, particulate matter, and improvement in air quality. In this paper we analyzed the impact of lockdown on air quality index in major cities of Pakistan during different stages of government-enforced shutdowns in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. The data revealed that March to May lockdown 2020 lead to in a radical descent of approximately 35% to 50% in air pollution level in Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta and many cities across the country. Pakistan’s Air Quality Index (AQI) levels improved with particulate matter (PM2.5) which reaches near about normal from unhealthy to moderate range considerably due to termination of economic activities, closed factories in hotspot zones and an additional reason for the uncertain variations in NO2 emissions was the rapid fall in inner-city traffic, which by some estimates declined as much as 65% across Pakistan. The lockdown chapter facilitated to clean the environment and shown relationship of air pollution levels strongly linked with higher commercial activities (Transportation, energy production and industrial activities) along with small scale interventions at city levels. Further it is suggested that in order to avoid pollution intensities bouncing back, Pakistan need to swing from the existing poorly fossil fuel hooked economy to clean energy based systems. We found the fact that how the environment is self-healing during the lockdown and this study will be beneficial to environmentalists and industry professionals to make the future strategy for improving the environment. Further it is too early and premature to connect on long-term climate change as a result of lockdown.