Variations in the Yamuna River Water Quality During the COVID-19 Lockdowns

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic that emerged in Wuhan city of China in December 2019 has adversely impacted the health and the economy, society, and other significant spheres of the human environment. The pandemic has severely impacted economic activities, especially the industrial production, transportation, tourism, and hoteling industries. The present study analyses the impact of varying severity of lockdowns of economic activities during various phases of the pandemic on the water quality of the Yamuna river on parameters like pH values, biological oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand, dissolved oxygen, total suspended solids, and electrical conductivity. The study has found a significant improvement in water quality parameters with closing economic activities during lockdowns. The average levels of concentration of these parameters of water quality were quite low during the lockdown period at 7.26 (pH value), 31.32, 136.07, 7.93, 30.33 mg/L, and 1500.24 mu S/cm compared to pre lockdown periods levels at 7.53 (pH), 39.62, 116.52, 6.1, 57.2 mg/L and 1743.01 mu S/cm for biological oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand, dissolved oxygen, total suspended solids, and electrical conductivity, respectively. In addition, the study has found a strong significant positive correlation between COD with BOD and TSS during the lockdown period. The major findings from the present study could be instrumental in making environmentally sustainable policies for the country's economic development. There is also a huge scope of scaling up of the study at the national level to analyze the health of the rivers in the backdrop of lockdowns.