Effect of Meteorological Parameters and Air Pollutants Association with Health Risk Assessment during the Pandemic in Delhi, India

Abstract

Abstract The novel Coronavirus disease was reported in the last week of December 2019 in the capital of Hubei province, Wuhan, China, which outspread in no time and hit more than 210 countries, including India. A considerable recovery in the air conditions during the lockdown occurred due to substantial reduction measures in all the activities throughout the pandemic. The present study evaluated the changes in particulate pollutants and the role of meteorological parameters during the course of the pandemic. The mean concentrations of PM2.5 and PM10 for all monitoring bases were calculated to be 109.54 and 214.04 µg/m3 for the years 2019–2021, respectively. The average values for PM2.5 and PM10 for all monitoring stations were observed to be 113.33, 108.92, 106.92 µg/m3, and 221.34, 203.02, 220.04 µg/m3 for the years 2019, 2020, and 2021 respectively. The gradual decline in values of PM2.5 has witnessed the closures of transport, industrial, and construction activities during the lockdown period in the year 2020. A strong significant positive correlation for PM2.5 was found between Alipur with ITO (0.89), Okhla (0.93), Narela (0.97), and Wazirpur (0.90), whereas PM10 was Alipur with ITO (0.82), Okhla (0.90), Narela (0.95), and Wazirpur (0.89), respectively. The present study investigated the relationship between PM2.5, PM10, meteorological parameters, and associated health risks. The negative relationships were observed between PM2.5 with temperature, wind speed, and solar radiation and a positive relationship with moisture and wind direction, whereas similar results were reported for PM10 for all monitoring stations. This study highlights that large emission reductions in the non-essential services were responsible for increasing the level of air quality. The health risk assessment for all age groups was calculated for pre-, during, and post-pandemic periods. The results for HQ values for PM2.5 indicated that children and infants were more likely to experience health effects after adults.