Impact of COVID-19 on Black Carbon and Carbon monoxide levels and its health risk assessment over East India

Abstract

The present research aims to describe the measurement of the changes in air pollutants like black carbon (BC), PM2.5 and CO concentrations levels, and estimation of their source apportionment and health risk during normal period (NP) as well as lockdown period (LP) in Jamshedpur city. In India, almost all anthropogenic activities are prohibited after announcement of lockdown on 25th March 2020 due to pandemic of COVID-19. The urban atmospheric pollutants mostly BC, PM2.5 and CO concentrations were observed gradual fall during LP. The averaged mass concentration of BC, PM2.5 and CO was found about 38.46 ± 1.91 µgm− 3, 176.55 ± 21.72 µgm− 3, 840 ± 282 ppbv in NP and 9.68 ± 2.36 µgm− 3, 42.86 ± 18.97 µgm− 3, 175.88 ± 121.82 ppbv during LP respectively. It was observed that during LP, the BC, PM2.5 and CO concentrations were too much low as compared to NP. This may be because of prohibited of all human activities due to COVID-19 pandemic. The source apportionment analysis of BC indicated that the biomass burning (62.5%) contribution was high as compared to fossil fuel emission (37.5%) at LP. The air trajectory model showed that most of the air masses were coming from western part of India and also some fresh marine air masses were received at the located position. The health risk for respective health effects of CVM, LC, LBW, and PLEDSC due to exposure to BC was evaluated as 9.76, 4.8, 8.59 and 19.59 PSC in NP and 8.35, 4.1, 7.35 and 16.77 PSC in LP.