Various impacts of COVID-19 on environmental pollution

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a global health crisis that had a deep impact on the world and our everyday lives. The deadly virus i.e. SARS-CoV-2 has rapidly spread around the world, posing enormous health, social, economic, and environmental challenges to the entire human population. Countries around the world have implemented complete or partial lockdown measures to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. Corona lockdown has profound social implications and it has sparked fears of impending economic trouble and recession.

However, this lockdown has also shown some positive effects on the natural environment due to the reduction of pollutant loading from vehicle emission, industries, and other sources. Based on a review of recent research in the relevant area, this paper assesses the effect of COVID-19 pandemic on air and water quality as well as on environmental noise.

A substantial reduction in the level of noxious NO2, particulate matter, and carbon emissions have been observed during the lockdown period, the lockdown also led to an appreciable drop in BOD (biological oxygen demand) and a significant increase in DO (dissolved oxygen) of different river water globally. In addition to this, the anthropogenic noise level has fallen by about one-third due to the COVID-19 lockdown.

This study reveals that there is a substantial possibility for healing the environment from the detrimental effects of anthropogenic activities through partial or temporary lockdown measures.