Dataset Information

Exposure to Nitrogen Dioxide (NO₂) from Vehicular Emission Could Increase the COVID-19 Pandemic Fatality in India: A Perspective.

ABSTRACT: The corona virus-2019 (COVID-19) is ravaging the whole world. Scientists have been trying to acquire more knowledge on different aspects of COVID-19. This study attempts to determine the effects of COVID-19, on a large population, which has already been persistently exposed to various atmospheric pollutants in different parts of India. Atmospheric pollutants and COVID-19 data, obtained from online resources, were used in this study. This study has shown strong positive correlation between the concentration of atmospheric nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and both the absolute number of COVID-19 deaths (r?=?0.79, p?2.5, PM₁₀, NO₂, in the different states of India, suggest that one of the main sources of atmospheric NO₂ is from fossil fuels combustion in transportation. It is suggested that homeless, poverty-stricken Indians, hawkers, roadside vendors, and many others who are regularly exposed to vehicular exhaust, may be at a higher risk in the COVID-19 pandemic.

SUBMITTER: Chakraborty P

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7363019 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Exposure to Nitrogen Dioxide (NO<sub>2</sub>) from Vehicular Emission Could Increase the COVID-19 Pandemic Fatality in India: A Perspective.

Chakraborty Parthasarathi P Jayachandran Saranya S Padalkar Prasad P Sitlhou Lamjahao L Chakraborty Sucharita S Kar Rajarshi R Bhaumik Swastika S Srivastava Medhavi M

Bulletin of environmental contamination and toxicology 20200715 2

The corona virus-2019 (COVID-19) is ravaging the whole world. Scientists have been trying to acquire more knowledge on different aspects of COVID-19. This study attempts to determine the effects of COVID-19, on a large population, which has already been persistently exposed to various atmospheric pollutants in different parts of India. Atmospheric pollutants and COVID-19 data, obtained from online resources, were used in this study. This study has shown strong positive correlation between the co ...[more]

PMID: 32671411

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Project description:COVID-19 related restrictions lowered particulate matter and trace gas concentrations across cities around the world, providing a natural opportunity to study effects of anthropogenic activities on emissions of air pollutants. In this paper, the impact of sudden suspension of human activities on air pollution was analyzed by studying the change in satellite retrieved NO2 concentrations and top-down NOx emission over the urban and rural areas around Delhi. NO2 was chosen for being the most indicative of emission intensity due to its short lifetime of the order of a few hours in the planetary boundary layer. We present a robust temporal comparison of Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) retrieved NO2 column density during the lockdown with the counterfactual baseline concentrations, extrapolated from the long-term trend and seasonal cycle components of NO2 using observations during 2015 to 2019. NO2 concentration in the urban area of Delhi experienced an anomalous relative change ranging from 60.0% decline during the Phase 1 of lockdown (March 25-April 13, 2020) to 3.4% during the post-lockdown Phase 5. In contrast, we find no substantial reduction in NO2 concentrations over the rural areas. To segregate the impact of the lockdown from the meteorology, weekly top-down NOx emissions were estimated from high-resolution TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) retrieved NO2 by accounting for horizontal advection derived from the steady state continuity equation. NOx emissions from urban Delhi and power plants exhibited a mean decline of 72.2% and 53.4% respectively in Phase 1 compared to the pre-lockdown business-as-usual phase. Emission estimates over urban areas and power-plants showed a good correlation with activity reports, suggesting the applicability of this approach for studying emission changes. A higher anomaly in emission estimates suggests that comparison of only concentration change, without accounting for the dynamical and photochemical conditions, may mislead evaluation of lockdown impact. Our results shall also have a broader impact for optimizing bottom-up emission inventories.

Project description:India is currently experiencing degraded air quality, and future economic development will lead to challenges for air quality management. Scenarios of sectoral emissions of fine particulate matter and its precursors were developed and evaluated for 2015-2050, under specific pathways of diffusion of cleaner and more energy-efficient technologies. The impacts of individual source sectors on PM2.5 concentrations were assessed through systematic simulations of spatially and temporally resolved particulate matter concentrations, using the GEOS-Chem model, followed by population-weighted aggregation to national and state levels. We find that PM2.5 pollution is a pan-India problem, with a regional character, and is not limited to urban areas or megacities. Under present-day emissions, levels in most states exceeded the national PM2.5 annual standard (40 μg m-3). Sources related to human activities were responsible for the largest proportion of the present-day population exposure to PM2.5 in India. About 60 % of India's mean population-weighted PM2.5 concentrations come from anthropogenic source sectors, while the remainder are from "other" sources, windblown dust and extra-regional sources. Leading contributors are residential biomass combustion, power plant and industrial coal combustion and anthropogenic dust (including coal fly ash, fugitive road dust and waste burning). Transportation, brick production and distributed diesel were other contributors to PM2.5. Future evolution of emissions under regulations set at current levels and promulgated levels caused further deterioration of air quality in 2030 and 2050. Under an ambitious prospective policy scenario, promoting very large shifts away from traditional biomass technologies and coal-based electricity generation, significant reductions in PM2.5 levels are achievable in 2030 and 2050. Effective mitigation of future air pollution in India requires adoption of aggressive prospective regulation, currently not formulated, for a three-pronged switch away from (i) biomass-fuelled traditional technologies, (ii) industrial coal-burning and (iii) open burning of agricultural residue. Future air pollution is dominated by industrial process emissions, reflecting larger expansion in industrial, rather than residential energy demand. However, even under the most active reductions envisioned, the 2050 mean exposure, excluding any impact from windblown mineral dust, is estimated to be nearly 3 times higher than the WHO Air Quality Guideline.

Dataset Information

Exposure to Nitrogen Dioxide (NO₂) from Vehicular Emission Could Increase the COVID-19 Pandemic Fatality in India: A Perspective.

Publications

Exposure to Nitrogen Dioxide (NO<sub>2</sub>) from Vehicular Emission Could Increase the COVID-19 Pandemic Fatality in India: A Perspective.

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Exposure to Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) from Vehicular Emission Could Increase the COVID-19 Pandemic Fatality in India: A Perspective.

Publications

Exposure to Nitrogen Dioxide (NO<sub>2</sub>) from Vehicular Emission Could Increase the COVID-19 Pandemic Fatality in India: A Perspective.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets

Exposure to Nitrogen Dioxide (NO₂) from Vehicular Emission Could Increase the COVID-19 Pandemic Fatality in India: A Perspective.