Preliminary Assessment of Air During COVID-19 Lockdown: An Unintended Benefit to Environment

Abstract

The death rate of people is increasing globally during the current outbreak of coronavirus. To combat with COVID-19 havoc, the world has adopted lockdown policies, including Pakistan. Ironically, the invisible virus is suffocating humans at a fast rate but on the other side, there is a visible monster in the world gobbling up human health, i.e., air pollution. Therefore, the main rationale of the present research is to visualize the air quality during the ‘Lockdown’ period in Lahore, Pakistan by mapping via online tools and techniques using a geospatial system. According to the present findings, the concentrations of air pollutants, such as particulate matters (PM10 and PM2.5), nitrogen oxides as NO and NO2, and sulphur dioxide, are below the maximum permissible levels of the Punjab Environmental Quality standards (PEQs), although ozone exceeds its PEQs. So in light of the results, once this COVID-19 crisis is over, the government should speed up measures to lessen air pollution to achieve targets of sustainable development goals (SDGs). Moreover, the present results of air assessment during COVID-19 would serve as a useful reminder for the government of Punjab to cut down air emission levels after the pandemic.

Keywords

• air sdgs
• coronavirus and air pollution
• covid-19 and sdgs
• lahore air quality index