We hypothesized that social lockdown policies due to COVID-19 had positively impacted the environment. Our reasoning was that due to the lockdown, most human activities had been halted or greatly decreased, including schools, office jobs, and gatherings, consequently, so was transportation. This allowed for an unprecedented reduction in the world’s carbon footprint. Another inspiration was the many articles that were published after lockdown policies had been in place for some time, stating that wildlife was coming back to once human predominated place, and our wish to verify the veracity of such claims.

We chose India as a study subject since it was under one of the strictest nationwide lockdowns and has many megacities across the country, which means it could give us a lot of valuable data of environmental change due to lockdown.

Initially, we studied the air pollution of India by monthly average data of Aerosol and SO2 concentration in the atmosphere.  In addition to that, we wanted to know whether the SO2 pollution affects the vegetation or not, by forming acid rains in the region. Even though there were some changes observed during lockdown months, it was a small amount and hard to tell whether it was due the lockdown or just climatic effect [See results here]. Maybe it is because that timescale of the vegetable growing process is longer compared to lockdown timescale, so we need to check it with data, which will be collected in the near future.

Additionally, we inspected the pollution of Ganga river by seeing Chlorophyll-a in the Ocean, where the river flows in. Therefore, we can see the social activities around Ganga river. The result showed that there is no big difference during the lockdown,compared to the past year data. Also, there was no data available after March 30, so it was hard to tell the reason. However, we hypothesize that that is because Ganga river is not only used by factories but also used as a daily water source for many people, who would continue using the water even during the lockdown. To verify that assumption we checked water pollution In Mediterranean sea, which is used mainly as a source for industry and tourism. The result showed that during the lockdown, the pollution decreased a little bit, but lack of data it is not clear.

With the current findings on the environmental changes due to CoVid-19, an Air Pollution Management website for the Northern India region. This website incorporates raw data from satellite and daily input of new respiratory cases from hospitals and clinics to produce a gradient map of the health deterioration due to poor air quality. The detail mechanics of the model is as following:

1. Satellite data will be downloaded from Earth Observation Satellites. The datas will be stored into the cloud and used for real-time interpretation for the cities in northern India.
2. New respiratory cases registered at hospitals and clinics will be uploaded in the cloud data storage on a daily basis. The data will be divided by regions and districts in northern India.
3. The cloud data storage is a virtual platform where the data from the hospitals, clinics and satellites will be gathered and processed.
4. Output: a gradient map of the northern India cities will be formed based on the relationship between the satellite data against the newly reported cases. [See 4.1-3 below]
5. Real-time data: The real-time data varies as the data from the satellite is interpreted immediately by the website. Therefore, the relationship between the air pollution level and the cases can be viewed in real-time. This can be used by the Government to make informed decisions on imposing environmental policies.The Government can also choose from the suggestion given in the website.

4.1 Green: Shows fair and safe cities which exhibit the lowest number of air pollution and the least number of new respiratory cases registered. (We suggest to do nothing about it)

4.2 Yellow: Shows increasing level of air pollution and the increasing number of new respiratory cases registered. (We suggest government to enforce few environmental policies to reduce the air pollution)

4.3 Red: Shows dangerous level of air pollution and the most number of new respiratory cases registered.  (We suggest the government give “Holiday Incentives” to business owners to close down the businesses for a short time frame, creating a condition similar to lockdown).

- Slide: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1udgQZKc0PG1MoiUHoNx_e-X6gjzMHjoCWxTSfTWWU5E/edit?usp=sharing

- Airplane slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1_0g32-tr9qUR4aQs6BBaAdYRXczUAbSQPiOB8wAhxbE/edit?usp=sharing

- Video: https://www.powtoon.com/online-presentation/b3B3forwjnS/?utm_medium=SocialShare&utm_campaign=copy%2Bshare%2Bby%2Bowner&utm_source=player-page-social-share&utm_content=b3B3forwjnS&utm_po=23662825&mode=movie

- NASA’s GIOVANNI tool to extract Aerosol Optical Depth, SO2, NDVI, and Chlorophyll-A concentration.

- JAXA’s GHGs Trend Viewer with GOSAT long-term target observations to find megacities (which will be the cities most affected by COVID-19 and also by pollution, where a lockdown would show more impact)

- Lockdown data: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/world/asia/india-lockdown-coronavirus.html