Synergic relation
between urban pollution island and meteorological parameters over urban heat island
for the city of Hyderabad during lockdown
Sai Bhargavi T. and Singh Umesh K.
Disaster Advances; Vol. 14(8); 14-21;
doi: https://doi.org/10.25303/148da1421; (2021)
Abstract
Covid-19 marked as a deadly pandemic hit the world in the early 2020’s. Stringent
measures were implemented, to contain the virus. India first implemented lockdown
on 25/03/2020 for 21 days (phase 1) and extended to 4 phases till 31 May 2020. During
this lockdown, all socio-economic activities are put to a standstill. This resulted
in a drastic improvement in the air quality. Although this being a temporary phenomenon,
it plays a crucial role in studying atmospheric gases. This study makes an attempt
to analyze the effect of the pollutants - PM2.5, PM10 and ozone combined with meteorological
parameters - Relative Humidity (RH), Solar Radiation (SR) on the Ambient and Surface
Temperatures (AT and LST).
The data from 23 March 30 June for the consecutive years 2019 and 2020 have been
considered. Each parameter is then plotted to study the trend for both the years
and percentage differences are also calculated. To evaluate the synergic relation
between the parameters, multiple linear regression analysis is done for each pollutant
with meteorological parameters. Observations show a reduction in all the pollutants
during the lockdown period. RH showed an increasing trend. Atmospheric temperature
is reduced by 6oC to 10oC whereas the LST is noticed to increase by 3oC to 5oC.
