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Impact of COVID-19 on Black Carbon and Carbon Monoxide Levels and Its Health Risk Assessment Over East India

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Abstract

The present research aims to describe the measurement of the changes in air pollutants such as 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. 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. BC, PM2.5, and CO concentrations were shown to be lower during LP 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 (cardiovascular mortality), LC (lung cancer), LBW (low birth weight), and PLEDSC (percentage lung function decrement of school-aged children) 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.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the funding from Researchers Supporting Project number (RSP2023R355), King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, National Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur, 831014, Jharkhand, India

    Tapan Kumar Sankar, Amit Kumar, Balram Ambade, Dilip Kumar Mahato, Ali Jaan Hussain & Shrikanta Shankar Sethi

  2. Department of Chemistry, G H Raisoni University Amravati-444701, Amravati, 444701, Maharashtra, India

    Tapan Kumar Sankar

  3. Department of Environmental Engineering & Management, Chaoyang University of Technology, 168, Jifeng E. Rd., Wufeng, Taichung, 41349, Taiwan, ROC

    Amit Kumar

  4. Department of Chemistry, Dr. R C Samantaroy Institute of Science and Technology, Gania, Odisha, India

    Shrikanta Shankar Sethi

  5. Department of Chemistry, College of Science, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2455, Riyadh, 11451, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

    Faruq Mohammad

  6. Department of Chemistry, Southern University and A&M College, Baton Rouge, LA, 70813, USA

    Ahmed A. Soleiman

  7. Department of Civil Engineering, Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences, Coimbatore, TN, India

    Sneha Gautam

  8. Water Institute, A Centre of Excellence, Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences, Coimbatore, TN, India

    Sneha Gautam

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  1. Tapan Kumar Sankar
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Sankar, T.K., Kumar, A., Ambade, B. et al. Impact of COVID-19 on Black Carbon and Carbon Monoxide Levels and Its Health Risk Assessment Over East India. Aerosol Sci Eng 7, 368–379 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41810-023-00187-4

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