Weather indicators and improving air quality in association with COVID-19 pandemic in India.

The COVID-19 pandemic enforced nationwide lockdown, which has restricted human activities from March 24 to May 3, 2020, resulted in an improved air quality across India. The present research investigates the connection between COVID-19 pandemic-imposed lockdown and its relation to the present air quality in India; besides, relationship between climate variables and daily new affected cases of Coronavirus and mortality in India during the this period has also been examined. The selected seven air quality pollutant parameters (PM10, PM2.5, CO, NO2, SO2, NH3, and O3) at 223 monitoring stations and temperature recorded in New Delhi were used to investigate the spatial pattern of air quality throughout the lockdown. The results showed that the air quality has improved across the country and average temperature and maximum temperature were connected to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. This outcomes indicates that there is no such relation between climatic parameters and outbreak and its associated mortality. This study will assist the policy maker, researcher, urban planner, and health expert to make suitable strategies against the spreading of COVID-19 in India and abroad. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00500-021-06012-9.

Introduction

The epidemic has also sparked a worldwide economic catastrophe unlike any seen in the past decades, with ramifications that will last for years. The large proportion of our habits, commerce, social and economic ties, methods, modes of employment, and political institutions have already altered profoundly as a result of the epidemic (Boccaletti et al. 2020). The Coronavirus-induced lockdown has a remarkable influence on pollution in the world’s second-largest populated country, India. Soon after the nationwide lockdown,1 the scientific community raised a question: Does the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown situation improve air quality, especially in cities and industrial corridors? (Wright 2020). The scattered empirical evidences have been suggested that paradoxically, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has improved air quality around the world, for instance, China, France, and Italy (Yunus et al. 2020) (ESA 2020). The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has first reported that lockdown has reduced the aerosol and nitrogen dioxide over Wuhan in China (NASA 2020). Then, the European Space Agency (2020) had been continuously reported that in Italy, Spain, and France emissions reduced by 20 to 30% during the month of March 2020 due to the lockdown situation (ESA 2020). Tobías et al. 2020 found that air pollutant materials decreased significantly during the two-week lockdown period for example, PM10 decreased by 28% to 31.0%, and nitrogen dioxide decreased by 45% to 51%; on the contrary, ozone gas increased by 33% to 57% in Barcelona. During the pre-locked down period, India had the top twenty polluted cities in the world (Majumdar et al. 2020) with the maximum cities that crossed the tolerant breathing limit of pure air in India (Central Pollution Control Board, 2019). Majumdar et al. 2020 also found that both particulate matters and gaseous pollutant have caused serious health problems in various cities in India, especially in Delhi, Kanpur, Kolkata, Bengaluru, and Mumbai. Balakrishnan 2019 found that in India, more than one million premature deaths have occurred due to various air pollutants. India has one of the utmost rates of respiratory problems and the world’s maximum number of tuberculosis (Wright 2020). Garaga et al. 2018 estimated the regional average concentration of PM2.5 in India and found that north has 3.3 μg/m3 and, east, west, and south India has, respectively, 3.3, 3.7, 2.3, and 1.6 μg/m3. Moreover, being a developing country, India has seen extensive urbanization; as a result, pollution is a direct outcome of urbanization and its related phenomena. The COVID-19 pandemic driven lockdown has changed the air quality in India. During the lockdown period, the concentration of particulate matter in all Indian cities decreased. This is mainly contributed due to the less number of motor vehicles and roadside food-vendors who use coal cook stoves which are the important sources of pollutant in Indian cities. In a recent research outcome, i.e., Sharma et al. 2020 found that there is a 43% decrease in PM2.5 and 18% decrease in NO2 in India during the first half of lockdown stage compared to earlier years. Mahato et al. 2020 established that during the lockdown period, the greatest reduction in PM10 and PM2.5 intensities was found to be greater than 50%. They also observed that the air quality is improved by 40% to 50% during the four days of the lockdown. Moreover, Huang et al. 2020 found that NO2 in the atmosphere over the eastern parts of China had decreased by approximately 65% in comparison with the previous year.

However, it has been noticed that COVID-19-affected patients have similar symptoms to other affected illnesses, e.g. cough, fever, respiratory disorder, and pneumonia. It has been found that the growth of other Coronavirus has significant relation to increase or decrease in temperature in the region. Bashir et al. 2020b analyzed the COVID-19 outbreak in the New York City with daily temperature, humidity, wind speed, and air quality; and according to their finding ingrowth of COVID-19. The affected people has positive correlation with minimum temperature and air quality. Dalziel et al. 2018a found the similar results that the influenza health epidemic follows a seasonal pattern of the climatic parameter; after the end of rainy and summer season’s infection-related health epidemic generally followed the increasing trend. Dalziel et al. (2018a) also found that the spatial variation of humidity differentiation in the incidence of influenza in the USA. The seasonal fluctuation of humidity leads to the seasonal outbreak of influenza, especially in winter. Tan et al. 2005 analyzed the relationship between SARS outbreak and daily temperature in the major cities of China, and they found that 16 °C–28 °C was the suitable condition for the growth for SARS virus. A sharp decrease in average temperature or towards cold weather leads to an increase or outbreak of SARS virus to affect patients. Therefore, it has the high probability to other SARS group virus which would follow the same kind of spread in dynamically related to temperature and humidity. Moreover, the weather phenomena have a close relationship with the human immune system. However, meteorological parameters such as wind speed and direction also affect the increase and transition of transferable syndromes (Ma et al. 2020). In recent work, Ahmadi et al. 2020 found that the sensitivity of COVID-19 epidemic in Iran is associated with the wind speed, humidity, solar radiation, and population density. The authors also revealed that suitable climatic condition, particularly humidity in Tehran and Mazandaran provinces, increase the virus-affected populations compared to the rest of Iran. Incidentally, Van Doremalen et al. 2020 found that SARS virus can remain active for three hours on aerosol; thereby there is a high chance of transmitting the virus with the direction of wind flow. Similarly, Chen et al. 2020 found that the climatic model with relative humidity, wind speed and temperature were highly associated with COVID-19 pandemic. Further, Contini and Costabile 2020 stated that the concentration of PM2.5 and PM10 in the air with biological, physical and chemical analysis could explain the observed mortality in various parts of the World. Melin et al. 2020a, b used the Multiple Ensemble Neural Network Models with Fuzzy Response Aggregation in Mexico City for prediction of the trend of COVID-19 time series. Here in the validation data set, the simulations of several ensemble neural network models with fuzzy response integration demonstrate excellent predicted results. The prediction errors of numerous ensemble neural networks are, in fact, substantially smaller than those of typical monolithic neural networks, demonstrating the benefits of the suggested technique (Melin et al. 2020a).Sun and Wang 2020 simulated a COVID-19 outbreak caused by a single imported patient who was not subjected to rigorous isolation. The lessons learned from the newly identified cases in Heilongjiang province after April 9 should be noted since they are pharmacologically linked to this "imported escaper." They also suggested that rigorous precautions such as isolation, house quarantine, and centralized quarantine be reinstated, particularly in Haerbin City, Heilongjiang Province, to reduce the possibility of a subsequent epidemic. Castillo and Melin 2020 used “hybrid approach combining the fractal dimension and fuzzy logic” for efficient and effective prediction of COVID-19 data series. Castillo and Melin 2021 provide a hybrid intelligent fuzzy fractal technique for countries classification made on the basis of fractal theoretical notions and fuzzy logic quantitative concepts. The fractal dimension's mathematical description allows us to assess the complexities of the nonlinear dynamic behavior displayed by country time-series data. Several researches have recently been published with the objective of clearer appreciation COVID-19 patterns, one of which is: identifying probable patterns utilizing a collection of X-ray medical pictures from individuals with prevalent bacteria pneumonia verified with COVID-19 illness (Apostolopoulos and Mpesiana 2020; Melin et al. 2020b). Other intriguing research is the use of dynamic statistical methods to investigate COVID-19 instances in China (Sarkodie and Owusu 2020). Several Artificial Intelligence methods are being used in healthcare to analyze data and make decisions. This indicates that AI-driven technologies can assist in spotting COVID-19 outbreaks and forecasting their type and rate of spread throughout the world (Santosh 2020).

Considering the close relationship with different climatic indicators with Coronavirus along with nationwide lockdown’s impact on air quality in India, the aim of the present research is to critically explore the connection between COVID-19-imposed lockdown and air quality across India during the pre-lockdown and lockdown periods. In this study apart from the improving air quality in COVID-19 pandemic-induced lockdown, we clearly demonstrated that the climatic variables are not extreme indicators for spreading of SARS COVID-19 virus in throughout the country. Some of the studies indicate that the decreasing air temperature is most favorable for spreading the COVID-19, but our study is totally against this approach. Apart from this, our aims in the study are to scientifically analyze COVID-19 pandemic-enforced nationwide lockdown and its relations to improved air quality across Indian cities. Besides, relationship between climate variables and daily new affected cases of Coronavirus and mortality in India during the lockdown period has also been examined. The present would have huge impact on post-pandemic crisis management of air quality, especially for megacities. The policymakers would have the opportunities to redesign the existing air quality regulatory mechanism.

Study area

The present study has focused in India; due to the huge variations of latitude (8° 4′ N to 37° 6′ N), longitude (68° 7′ E to 97° 25′ E), and varying physiography, India's climate has a broad variety of weather conditions. The climate of India differs from tropical to subtropical humid, with most of the area's average temperature varying from 10 to 40 °C throughout the year (Pal et al. 2021a). The rainfall of the country varies about 100 to150 cm, and the country receives the maximum amount of rain during the monsoon season. It is well known fact that subtropical climatic conditions are also responsible for different types of diseases.

Moreover, India has 1.3 billion populations and 31.16% lives in fifty-three urban agglomerations spreading across the country, whereas the rest of the population (68.16%) lives in the rural areas (Census of India 2011). In the recent decade, India has been experienced a positive increase in urbanization and economic growth (Gurjar et al. 2016), which combinedly make the country one of the largest greenhouse gas emitters; therefore, people are facing air pollution-induced problems in everyday life. Pant et al. 2020 mentioned that air quality always remains as significant environmental and health hazard problems in Indian megacities.

In addition, being a highly populated developing country, the country’s health infrastructure does not have that much capacity to facilitate this huge population, whereas India suffers from poverty and a large number of families without access to basic health care services, which hinders people’s health condition. The poor infrastructures lack of medicine, beds, and limited resources are common phenomena in the government-aided hospitals throughout the nation. On the other hand, private hospitals have better infrastructure that is too expensive and almost inaccessible for a low-income group of poor families. According to WHO’s (WHO) guidelines, doctor population ratio should be 1:1000 but in India, it is 1:1457. Therefore, the number of doctors is far less than that is required in India. As a result of this, India is suffering to overcome the new challenges in medical and health sciences. Figure 1 shows the map of the study area with point location of data sources.

Fig. 1

Map of the study area with point location of data sources

Materials and methods

Analytical neural network (ANN)

The ANN is a machine learning technique, connectionist system motivated by the research of biological neurons (Hewitson and Crane 1994; Levine et al. 1996). A self-learning method employs the ANN model to self-analyze the associations among multi-source data (such as combines of qualitative and quantitative information) and to determine the region more likely to trigger air quality index under certain predetermined geo-environmental circumstances. Furthermore, this method may create links to linear or nonlinear projection methods to a satisfactory precision (Licznar and Nearing 2003). ANN’s are commonly used in their capability to model the dynamic process and identify the trends in science and technological problems (Jain et al. 1996; Cracknell and Reading 2014).

An ANN method was constructed with considering different air quality parameters as input or covariates, and air quality index (AQI) observed dependent factors. Here, a multilayer perceptron neural network classifier has been developed using the covariates referred, e.g., PM2.5 (μg/m3), PM10 (μg/m3), NO2 (μg/m3), NH3 (μg/m3), SO2 (μg/m3), CO (mg/m3), and Ozone (μg/m3) were considered. Hyperbolic tangent was considered for the development of the model for hidden layer initialization, and identity function was considered for the activation of the output layer. Hyperbolic tangent function takes real-valued arguments of inputs (x1, x2, …, x) and transforms them to the range (− 1, 1) through Eq. 1.

The identity function is a linear function (Eq. 2) that obtains real-valued arguments of hidden layer and precedes them unaffected.

There is also a supplementary neuron component, named w, identified as the bias that can be taken as a synapse connected with an input Aqf0 =  − 1. The output of the neuron AqI(air quality index) is supported on the creation among input vector Aqf (Aqf0, x1, x2, …, x) and vector w (w0, w1, w2, …, wn) composed of synapses, with the bias (w0), The following equations (Eqs. 3 and 4) were considered to make the ANN methodwhere Aqf are the components of air quality (Aqfn = Aqf0…Aqf) and w is the synaptic influence allocated for individual Aqf(w = w0…w).where is the establishment role value and AqI is the air quality index.

Basically ANN is now one of the most useful tools that can be used to model complex patterns, to understand relative contribution of input variables on prediction and decision making. Obviously it is well known fact that taken air quality pollutant parameters (PM10, PM2.5, CO, NO2, SO2, NH3 and O3) how contribute in AQI calculation. But here we identified rationalized importance of them.

Air quality index (AQI)

According to the Millennium Development Goals, sustainable management is essential for a nation to progress under crucial conditions. As a measure, AQI records pollutants from the monitoring station in the surrounding air. AQI makes awareness on the public by providing information about the risk of daily pollution level and on the other hands helps to take immediate measure for this impact on the environment (Ghorani-Azam et al. 2016). It represents the consistency of the air using color schemes and graphics and graded as good, satisfactory, moderate, poor, very poor, and severe. Maximum air pollution and related diseases are indicated by the high value of AQI. Traditional AQI assessment based on individual pollutants to the norm utilizing the effective aggregation technique removes complexity, eclipse, and stiffness (Swamee and Tyagi 1999). Sharma et al. 2020 stated that AQI used maximum sub-indices using such five pollutants (PM10, PM2.5, SO2, NO2, and CO). The National Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Programme includes seven new parameters such as PM2.5, ozone (O3), ammonia (NH3), benzene (C6H6), benzo (a), pyrene (BaP), arsenic (As) and nickel (Ni). And rests of parameters are sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), particulate matter size less than 10 microns (PM10), lead (Pb), and carbon monoxide (CO), respectively. Three of the twelve parameters have an annual standard (annual avg.), six have an annual standard with a short term (annual 330 avg./24 h), and O3, CO alone has a short period (1 h/8 h/24 h). The current research work has aimed by presenting an integrated index of analyzing on seven pollutants (PM2.5, PM10, NO2, NH3, SO2, CO, and O3) individually in the lockdown period compared to pre-lockdown period and also indicate future condition depending on this trend.

For estimating AQI, an established method by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), Govt. of India, has been followed throughout the study. The AQI has been estimated by considering the major pollutants (PM2.5, PM10, NO2, NH3, SO2, CO, and O3). All monitoring stations across India and its recorded pollutant have been considered in the present study. PM stands for particulate matter (also called particle pollution): the term for a combination of solid and liquid particles present in the air. Several molecules, like dust, dirt, soot, or smoke, are large or dark enough to be seen with the human eye. Some are so tiny that only an electron microscope can identify them. The particles in PM10 are tiny enough to enter the throat and lungs. High amounts of PM10 can cause coughing, runny noses, and stinging eyes. When PM10 levels are high, those with heart or lung problems may have greater symptoms. Wheezing, chest tightness, and trouble breathing are some of the symptoms. PM2.5 is a kind of tiny inhalable particle having a diameter of 2.5 μm or less. Such particles can be made up of a lot of various chemicals and available in a multitude of sizes and forms. Carbon monoxide (CO) is a combustible gas that is colorless, odorless, and tasteless. It is somewhat less dense than air. One carbon atom and one oxygen atom make up carbon monoxide. It is the oxocarbon family's most basic chemical. The most frequent source of carbon monoxide is thermal combustion, although there are other biological and environmental sources that produce and release substantial amounts of carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide is used in a variety of industrial processes, including synthetic chemical production and metallurgy, but it is also a contaminant in the air caused by industrial operations. Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is a reactive gas that belongs to the group of gases considered as nitrogen oxides (NOx). Nitrous acid and nitric acid are two other nitrogen oxides. NO2 is being used as the attribute for the wider community of nitrogen oxides. NO2 principally receives in the air from of the fuel combustion. NO2 constructs from emissions from cars, trucks and buses, power stations, and off-road materials. Ammonia (NH3) is an amidase inhibitors and neurotoxic that is made up of a single nitrogen atom covalently linked to three hydrogen atoms. Microbial activities and the decomposition of organic materials create it both artificially and naturally. Ammonia is a chemical that is utilized in a wide range of industrial applications, as well as as a fertilizer and a refrigerant. Ozone (O3) in the air we breathe may be harmful to our health, particularly on hot, bright days when ozone levels can approach dangerously high levels. Even modest quantities of ozone can be harmful to one's health.

There are two steps to calculate AQI, i.e. the first one is to formulate the sub-indices and the second one is the amalgamation of sub-indices to acquire AQI.

Further the sub-index functions were used to formulate sub-indices for n numbers of pollutants; mathematically it is expressed as

Amalgamation of sub-indices to acquire AQI is done using some numerical function, i.e., expressed as

The relationship between sub-index (I) and pollutants concentration (X) is expressed aswhere α indicates slope of the line and β indicates intercept at X = 0.

On the other hand, sub-indices (I) for a identified pollutant attentiveness (Cp) are expressed as,here BHI indicates cutoff point attentiveness ≥ known attentiveness; BLO indicates cutoff point attentiveness ≤ known attentiveness; IHI means AQI value equal to BHI; ILO means AQI value equivalent to BLO and Cp specifies pollutant concentrations.

Thereafter, weighted additive value was calculated to amalgamation of sub-indices and is expressed aswhere ∑W equals 1, I indicates sub-index of pollutant I, n indicates amount of different pollutants, and W means influence of the pollutant.

Minimum or maximum operator form is expressed as (Ott 1978):

The scientific rationalize behind the correlation is as the COVID-19 cases followed the normal probability distribution, so the nonparametric correlation method is suitable to understand the covid19 cases with others environmental parameters like climate. Others scientific study also established that climate is an important variable of COVID-19 infection.

Kendall and Spearman rank test

We have conduct the probability distribution of various climatic condition and definite cases of COVID-19 with the help of Kendall test and Spearman correlation. This nonparametric method has also been applied because the distribution has followed the normal probability distribution (Taylor 1987). Finally, Fig. 2 shows the generalized methodology flowchart to demonstrate the brief theme of this research.

Fig. 2

Methodology flowchart

The Mann–Kendall test base described as follows on the test statistics Swhere is the continuous data value, n is the data sets length, and

Mann (1945) and Kendall (1975) have reported that statistics S, with the mean and variance as followed, is distributed essentially normally when n ≥ 8where is the degree number of relations . Standardized statistics of tests z are determined by

The standard normal distribution with a mean of zero and variance of one is followed by the normalized MK statistics Z.

Results

Spatial mapping of major pollutants during pre-lockdown and lockdown

The Lockdown Policy was introduced by the Indian Government in order to mitigate and monitor the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a collective decision to maintain a social distancing policy and to avoid mass gathering. Along with the above strategy, strict measures have been taken to put an end to transport systems (road, rail, air) and to the closure of major industries. The entire shutdown of traffic flow, industries, hotels, stores, and government offices resulted in a massive change in air pollution, especially among important prominent components including PM10, PM2.5, CO, NO2, SO2, NH3, and O3 (Fig. 3).This can be clearly seen from the spatial distribution of the accumulated PM10, PM2.5, CO, NO2, SO2, and NH3 contaminants at various pre-lockdown, lockdown, and predicted post-lockdown periods (Fig. 3). Particularly, the amounts of the pollutants only decreased below the permissible limit within one week of the shutdown (March 24, 2020 to March 31, 2020), whereas the absorption of O3 increases in manufacturing and transport conquered region. Later, the central government has given a limited relaxation (April 14, 2020) of the lockdown measures of COVID-19 for the necessary vehicles and human activities beyond the red zone, with a marginal effect on air pollutants. Owing to COVID-19 lockdown steps, the emissions declined dramatically in the vehicular traffic and the shutdown of factories, restaurants, shops, government offices, and several other human-induced activities (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3

Spatial distribution of PM2.5 (µg/m3) in before and during lockdown periods (a), spatial distribution of PM10 (µg/m3) in before and during lockdown periods (b), spatial distribution of NO2 (µg/m3) in before and during lockdown periods (c), spatial distribution of NH3 (µg/m3) in before and during lockdown periods (d), spatial distribution of SO2 (µg/m3) in before and during lockdown periods (e), spatial distribution of CO (µg/m3) in before and during lockdown periods (f), spatial distribution of ozone (µg/m3) in before and during lockdown periods (g), and spatial distribution of air quality index in before and during lockdown periods (h)

It was observed that air quality is improved drastically during the pre-lockdown period (24th March, 2020) of the COVID-19-extended lockdown phase (3rd May, 2020) and air quality is deteriorated slightly after the government gave a minor relaxation (April 14, 2020) to the necessary vehicles and other human activities beyond the red zone. On average, there is a significant improvement in air quality (− 26.99% with the net reduction of − 39.16) throughout three weeks lockdown durations (March 24, 2020, to April 14, 2020) relative to the standard air quality over three weeks pre-lockdown period (Fig. 3h). During the predicted post-lockdown phase (after 3rd May, 2020), air quality dropped dramatically; this is like at the value similar to the start of the lockdown period (March 24, 2020).

Changes in major pollutants concentration during pre-lockdown, lockdown, and post-lockdown

The change in the intentness of major air pollutants is very clear from the predicted outcomes that during the pre-lockdown period of COVID-19 (before March 24, 2020) the country witnessed massive air pollutants as in the previous months or years. However, after the lockdown (March 24, 2020), a major reduction in pollutants was observed throughout the country as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic (Fig. 4). In particular, significant decreases in quantity of pollutants such as PM10, PM2.5, CO, NO2, SO2 and NH3 have been estimated during the lockdown period (Fig. 4). The average assemblies of ambient air pollutants such as PM10 and PM2.5 have reduced by − 40.84% and − 45.38%, respectively. The decline rate of PM10 and PM2.5 is directly linked with automobile emissions, industrial dust, and cooking smoke or to complicated reactions with chemicals such as SO2 and NO. Forest fires, wood burners, agricultural burning, industrial smoke, and dust from various work sites all contributed to the decline in PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations (Majumdar et al. 2020). Other pollutants that have displayed a significant difference between pre-lockdown and lockdown are CO (− 19.76%) and NO2 (− 37.80%), whereas in SO2 (− 33.81%) and NH3 (− 17.06%), the decline was very low compared to the others pollutants, and there was also no strong trend of regression. The accumulation of O3 increases in manufacturing and transport dominated region, in particular, > 10% rise. The source of this increased in O3, particularly in industrial and transport dominated areas, is decline in NO, which contributes to reduce in O3 consumption (NO + O3 = NO2 + O2) and causing a raise in O3 levels. According to the study, it will take at least 180 days to record the concentration of key air pollutants during the post-lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic, such as pre-lockdown levels across the country. It is a good sign that a significant perfection in air quality might be probable if the strict accomplishment of emissions control policies such as lockdown is enforced.

Fig. 4

Trend of major pollutants in some selected monitoring station

Spatial variation of PM10, PM2.5, CO, NO2, SO2, NH3, and O3, concentrations

In the last 5 years (2016 to 2020), we have observed the seven contaminants’ 24-h accumulation phase during the same two months span (i.e. March and April). Continuous measurements of PM10, PM2.5, CO, NO2, SO2, and NH3 pollutants were acquired from the air quality monitoring station of India (Kamyotra and Sinha 2016). For this research, we utilized air quality monitoring data from 223 monitoring sites across India as a particular direction. According to the data, the lockdown resulted in a significant reduction in air quality across India. In contrast to PM10 and PM2.5 which have decreased dramatically (− 40.84% and − 45.38%) during lockdown phase, NO2 and CO have decreased drastically (− 37.80% and − 19.76%), while pollutants such as SO2 and NH3 may have slight declination trends (− 33.81% and − 17.06%) compared to others. The maximum PM10 and PM2.5 noticed in 2019 were as high as 264.82 μg/m3 and 344.07 μg/m3, respectively. This net decreased to − 113.10.44 μg/m3 (− 59.86% maximum reduction) and − 57.56 μg/m3 (− 45.05% maximum reduction), respectively, in 2020. The amount of O3 increases in manufacturing and transport dominated region. The results indicate that the accomplishment of the lockdown would lead to a significant improvement in air quality and should be placed into practice as an additional way of reducing pollution. The spatial distribution of all the pollutants except ozone are maximum in some pockets, i.e., National Capital Region (NCR), Mumbai metropolitan region, Kolkata, Guahati, and its surrounding regions. Similar spatial allocation has been associated in the case of air quality index. The gradual declining tendency has been associated among pollutant materials and its resultant air quality in lockdown period.

Correlation between pollutants in the atmosphere

The correlation between various concentrations of air pollutants in India during the study period (i.e., from February 17, 2020, to April 29, 2020) is shown in Fig. 5. The mean daily accumulation of PM2.5 is directly linked to the average daily concentration of PM10 (r = 0.73), NO2 (r = 0.58), CO (r = 0.34) and AQI (r = 0.92). Similarly, the average daily concentration of PM10 is directly correlated with the maximum daily concentration of PM2.5 (r = 0.73), NO2 (r = 0.48), NH3 (r = 0.41), CO (r = 0.39) and AQI (r = 0.80). The mean daily accumulation of NO2 is directly linked to the average daily concentration of PM2.5 (r = 0.58), PM10 (r = 0.48) and AQI (r = 0.58). NH3 by the mean daily aggregation is directly linked to the average daily concentration of PM10 (r = 0.41). Similarly, the average daily aggregation of SO2 is linked with AQI (r = 0.30). The daily concentration of CO has a positive relation with PM2.5 (r = 0.34), PM10 (r = 0.39) and AQI (r = 0.40). The daily aggregation of AQI is also directly linked to the average daily concentration of PM2.5 (r = 0.92), PM10 (r = 0.80), NO2 (r = 0.58), SO2 (r = 0.30) and CO (r = 0.40).

Fig. 5

Correlation of different pollutants in India during lockdown

Results of ANN modelling

After several years of experience, we got an integrated network structure with a minimum error rate for both training and testing. It used 69.1% of total data to train the network and rest 30.9% for testing the model. There were one hidden layer with 5 hidden nodes (Fig. 6) in the network structure. The Sum of Squares Error (SSE) was 1.548 for training and 1.055 for testing with a relative error of 0.012 and 0.021, respectively. Observed values were well correlated with predicted values (Fig. 7) with a high degree of explainability (R2 linear = 0.985). Among the predictor covariates, PM2.5 contributed most (0.366) for AQI prediction, followed by PM10 (0.337). NH3 has just minimal accountability (0.029) for this result (Fig. 8). Normalized importance of input variables is given in (Fig. 8). Synaptic weights in between input variables-hidden node and hidden node-output (Table 1) are the weighing factor for prediction through Eqs. 3 and 4.

Fig. 6

Structure of the network in ANN model

Fig. 7

Accuracy of the model using observed versus predicted values

Fig. 8

Importance of the variable in ANN model

Table 1

Network information of ANN

Input layer	Covariates	1	PM2.5
		2	PM10
		3	NO2
		4	NH3
		5	SO2
		6	CO
		7	O3
	Number of unitsa		7
	Rescaling method for covariates		Standardized
Hidden layer(s)	Number of hidden layers		1
	Number of units in hidden layer 1a		5
	Activation function		Hyperbolic tangent
Output layer	Dependent variables	1	AQI
	Number of units		1
	Rescaling method for scale dependents		Standardized
	Activation function		Identity
	Error function		Sum of squares

aExcluding the bias unit

Influence of climate indicators on mortality

The empirical results of seven atmospheric factors are presented in Tables 2 and 3 using the Kendal and Spearman rank correlation analysis. Results indicated that the average air quality and maximum temperature are relevant for COVID-19-positive new cases (Figs. 9 and 10). The variation of temperature from high to low influences the spreading of virus in nationwide. Though India faces mortality and positive cases, but by comparison it is quite low than other non-tropical countries which has the similar range of temperature, i.e., from 3 to 17 °C. In addition, according to Spearman test, average air quality and mean temperature indicate the positive case and mortality of COVID-19. The changing climate patterns for existing research have been examined for COVID-19 pandemic in highly populated countries like India. Our experiments showed that the maximum temperature and the average temperature are connected to the regional distribution of COVID-19 during the lockdown period. Shi et al. (2020); Bashir et al. (2020a) supported our outcomes, which examined at climate changes and claimed that temperature was the controlling factor behind COVID-19. Apart from this, humidity and temperature play an important role in the spreading of COVID-19 (Sajadi et al. 2020). The Wuhan incidence of COVID-19 revealed a close relation between diseases spread and weather patterns, with projections that warmer weather can control the virus (Wang et al. 2020). Dalziel et al. 2018b predicted that growing magnitude of seasonal variations in specific humidity contributes to more severe pandemics. Apart from this, meteorological parameters like air quality, humidity, and wind speed also accelerated the spread of COVID-19. In fact, air temperature also leads to the spread of the virus (Chen et al. 2020). In those areas where absolute humidity varies between 3 and 9 g/m3 and the atmosphere is hot in nature, the MIT community has previously confirmed 90 percent events. In this regard, Poole 2020 has also corroborated this by stating that humidity and climate indicators are associated with the COVID-19 spread. Therefore, it can be said that the maximum temperature and humidity have altered the mortality trend in India than American and European countries. So there are very close connection between climate indicators and the distribution of COVID-19. The average temperature was shown to have a substantial link to both mortality and case incidence (Tzampoglou and Loukidis 2020). Its impact appears to be as least as important as the speed with which the government responds. Because of its non-monotonic nature, relative humidity was shown to have a considerable but difficult to detect impact. Nonetheless, the population’s age structure appeared as one of the most significant risk factors (Tzampoglou and Loukidis 2020). As a consequence, all of the researches included in this systematic review had mixed results, and none of them provided conclusive evidence that a rise in temperature lowers COVID-19 case numbers (Chin et al. 2020). Despite this, most researches show a negative connection between COVID-19 and temperature, which, when combined with in vitro investigations on the virus’s stabilizing impact, suggests a negative link (Briz-Redón and Serrano-Aroca 2020). Chin et al. 2020 show that summer weather may lower COVID-19 transmission to some amount, but not enough to end the pandemic, in line with the findings of rigorous research (Yao et al. 2020; Xu et al. 2020). However, given the ambiguity of the COVID-19 data and the potential effect of the statistical and modeling methodology on the conclusions, these findings should be taken with caution.

Table 2

Spearman rho correlation coefficient of selected variables

	Daily new cases	Daily new deaths	Total deaths	Mortality rate	Maximum temperature	Minimum temperature	Average temperature	Average rainfall	Air quality
Daily new cases	1.000	.885**	.863**	.885**	.651**	.379**	.603**	.284*	− .804**
Total deaths	.885**	1.000	.901**	1.000**	.682**	.315**	.608**	.259*	− .826**
Daily new deaths	.863**	.901**	1.000	.901**	.817**	.376**	.744**	.360**	− .916**
Mortality rate	.885**	1.000**	.901**	1.000	.682**	.315**	.608**	.259*	− .826**
Maximum temperature	.651**	.682**	.817**	.682**	1.000	.477**	.914**	.376**	− .760**
Minimum temperature	.379**	.315**	.376**	.315**	.477**	1.000	.748**	.153	− .413**
Average temperature	.603**	.608**	.744**	.608**	.914**	.748**	1.000	.328**	− .719**
Average rainfall	.284*	.259*	.360**	.259*	.376**	.153	.328**	1.000	− .391**
Air quality	− .804**	− .826**	− .916**	− .826**	− .760**	− .413**	− .719**	− .391**	1.000

***, **, and * are the significant at the 1%, 5%, and 10% levels of significance, respectively

Table 3

Pollutant matter and gases before and after lockdown in India 2020

(Source: National Air quality Index portal, Central Pollution Control Board, Govt. of India, 2020)

Types of pollutants	Before lockdown
	17-Feb-20		24-Feb-20		02-Mar-20		09-Mar-20		16-Mar-20		24-Mar-20
	High	Low	High	Low	High	Low	High	Low	High	Low	High	Low
PM2.5	66.000	45.004	250.869	44.89	281.917	37.285	209.849	21.002	185.852	32.064	163.655	31.001
PM10	281.562	0.02	247.435	0.017	253.908	0.004	281.057	0.012	218.757	0.013	190.831	0.011
NO2	114.556	3.151	122.967	6.091	85.977	5.078	99.252	0.087	75.98	0.074	57.729	0.052
NH3	15.272	0.009	13.001	0.007	11.95	0.002	11.253	0.005	15.745	0.006	12.168	0.006
SO2	66.946	1.586	52.958	0.62	82.917	0.008	45.954	0.124	82.889	6.003	65.94	0.023
C0	106.885	16.043	127.022	0.001	100.888	0.131	99.856	0.001	106.526	0.001	135.985	0.069
O3	82.752	7.133	75.695	0.01	57.94	4.068	104.955	4.004	180.57	1.007	68.933	5.064
AQI	362.812	52.004	257.106	48.376	281.918	60.753	210.122	30.002	185.956	46.002	163.885	42.001

Fig. 9

Variability of temperature in before and during lockdown periods

Fig. 10

Trend of positive COVID-19 cases in different temporal periods

Discussion

India ranks fifth in the world's most polluted countries and is the home to the 21 most polluted cities in the world, based on concentrations of PM2.5 and PM10. In a recent decade, numerous suggestive measures have failed to maintain the standard air quality across Indian cities. However, the scenario has changed due to COVID-19 pandemic, the environment and air quality have improved significantly. The particulate matter (PM2.5, PM10) which is related to automobile emissions, industrial emissions, dust, cooking smoke are one of the most dangerous air pollutants reduced drastically from 138.85 to 75.84 μg/m3 in India. However, due to relaxation permitted after April 14 2020 by the government beyond the red zone has resulted in the smaller fluctuation on the prediction of selected air pollutants. As well as the spatial prediction of the AQI during pre-lockdown and lockdown period indicates a significant improvement in air quality, but the reduction of air quality was observed in the post-lockdown phase. This also indicates the chance of an increase in the air pollutants with increasing relaxation in the coming days. Decreasing air pollutants due to lockdown for restricting of COVID19 community spread has been observed around the world (Huang et al. 2020).

However, the highly transmissible COVID-19 has forced the world to shutdown mode and responsible for 238,650 deaths in all over the world (WHO 2020), whereas in India at present the number of deaths is 1323 and it is going on. The nature of COVID-19 is still not known completely (Van Doremalen et al. 2020). Primary statements from WHO clearly stated there were signs of human-to-human transmission (Twitter handle of WHO, on January 14, 2020, but after some days it was found the COVID-19 is highly transmissible from human-to-human contact. The present study indicates that the mortality rate significantly related to the maximum temperature, minimum temperature, average temperature, and air quality (Tables 2, 4). The increasing daily new cases have always increased the mortality rate in India. However, the higher amount of correlation values for daily new deaths, cumulative deaths, and mortality rate were associated positively with maximum temperature and negatively with air quality. Similar results were also observed over the USA by Bashir et al. 2020a although the correlation values with maximum temperature were much lower.

Table 4

Kendal tau correlation coefficient of selected variables

	Daily new cases	Daily new deaths	Total deaths	Mortality rate	Maximum temperature	Minimum temperature	Average temperature	Average rainfall	Air quality
Daily new cases	1.000	.772**	.761**	.772**	.506**	.259**	.472**	.204*	− .689**
Total deaths	.772**	1.000	.812**	1.000**	.535**	.226**	.467**	.181*	− .691**
Daily new deaths	.761**	.812**	1.000	.812**	.659**	.265**	.579**	.244**	− .824**
Mortality rate	.772**	1.000**	.812**	1.000	.535**	.226**	.467**	.181*	− .691**
Maximum temperature	.506**	.535**	.659**	.535**	1.000	.341**	.773**	.264**	− .571**
Minimum temperature	.259**	.226**	.265**	.226**	.341**	1.000	.584**	.113	− .279**
Average temperature	.472**	.467**	.579**	.467**	.773**	.584**	1.000	.231**	− .542**
Average rainfall	.204*	.181*	.244**	.181*	.264**	.113	.231**	1.000	− .266**
Air quality	− .689**	− .691**	− .824**	− .691**	− .571**	− .279**	− .542**	− .266**	1.000

***, **, and * are the significant at the 1%, 5%, and 10% levels of significance, respectively

Further, previous studies have found that deaths from asthma attack, acute respiratory inflammation, and cardio respiratory diseases are associated with prolonged interaction with polluted air (Schwartz and Dockery 1992; Dockery and Pope 1994) and causing 4.6 millions of deaths per year around the world (Lelieveld et al. 2015, 2019; Cohen et al. 2017). In the post-lockdown phase, there is a substantial drop in daily average PM10, PM2.5, NO2, and SO2 levels (Kumari and Toshniwal 2020a). In the post-lockdown phase, meanwhile, the proportion of O3 rose. PM10 levels were within National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) on a daily basis (Aneja et al. 2001). Besides this medical profile and the patients’ age structure died from COVID-19 found that all the age categories are susceptible to COVID-19, but the mortality rate increases with increasing age combined with pre-existing medical conditions related to heart disease diabetes and asthma (WHO 2020). As well as, Wu et al. 2020 found that in the USA, COVID-19 death is related to prolonged exposure to the PM2.5. Therefore, Contini and Costabile 2020 rightly mentioned that air quality can be considered as a factor affecting the respiratory system of the human body and increasing mortality rates. Besides this, the quality of air is severely related to human activities (Donahue 2018) and we can infer that the interaction among the people is also very high in this area, thereby the probability of high infected people as well as high mortality rate around the polluted areas. So, it can be said that climate indicators and air quality are not significantly connected with COVID-19 death cases. Several factors are conspiring to bring pollution levels back to levels seen prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as calls from some decision-makers and businesses to reschedule Green New Deal projects, reduce vehicle emissions specifications, and stymie the execution of renewable power and inventory work (Pal et al. 2021b). Apart from this, Singh and Chauhan 2020 stated that during the lockdown, air pollution levels decreased significantly, particularly in Delhi and Kolkata, both of which are renowned to be among India’s and the world's most polluted cities. Apart from this, various studies indicate that there is an improving nature of air quality in association with COVID-19 lockdown in various parts of the world (Balasubramaniam et al. 2020; Kumari and Toshniwal 2020b; Li et al. 2020). Chowdhuri et al. 2021 show that, due to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Indian government implemented a lockdown period (which began on March 24, 2020) during which the concentrations of several contaminants fell considerably. During the lockdown time, the air quality improved and the urban temperature progressively fell attributed to the prevalence of low air pollutants in the environment. During the COVID-19 lockdown phase, Chowdhuri et al. 2020 found a significant reduction in pre-monsoon lightening incidence above the Kolkata megacity in India. The COVID-19 epidemic caused a reduction in PM10, NO2, SO2, O3, and aerosol contents in the lower atmosphere, which was the primary reason of the drop in pre-monsoon lightning rates. In this research, apart from the improving air quality in lockdown period we try to estimate the relationship between the climatic conditions and the daily cases. From this, we found that there is no such importance among the climatic variables and COVID-19 daily cases. In previous researches, it was indicated that the lower temperature is most favorable for COVID-19 cases. But the outcomes from our study are totally different which indicate that there is no such importance of climatic factors in COVID-19 cases (Table 5).

Table 5

Comparative analysis of pollutant matter in India in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 (

Source: National Air quality Index portal, Central Pollution Control Board, Govt. of India, 2020)

Types of pollutants	Before lockdown
	17-Feb-16		17-Feb-17		17-Feb-18		17-Feb-19
	High	Low	High	Low	High	Low	High	Low
PM2.5	340.231	36.027	341.881	36.98	343.003	37.131	340.231	36.027
PM10	263.81	0.013	263.814	0.687	263.817	1.687	263.818	0.013
NO2	114.311	3.285	114.808	3.13	114.719	3.152	114.724	3.157
NH3	13.189	0.007	15.227	0.009	15.228	0.009	15.291	0.009
SO2	66.945	1.583	66.934	1.856	66.945	1.551	66.946	2.003
C0	106.891	16.053	106.892	16.054	106.914	16.054	107.92	16.054
O3	83.251	7.191	84.451	7.228	85.813	7.213	85.981	7.256
AQI	362.812	73.011	362.803	73.012	362.784	73.012	361.134	73.342

Conclusion

It can be stated that the COVID-19 pandemic-induced lockdown imposed significant restriction on human activities which has reduced emissions of the pollutants from commercial sectors in India. The much-needed lockdown effect on concentrations of seven air pollutants and climate indicators from February 17 to April 29, 2020, at 223 locations in different stations across the country shows significant reductions. The study has found that among all pollutants, PM10 and PM2.5 recorded the highest decline accompanied by NO2, SO2, NH3, and CO. The concentrations of PM10 and PM2.5 are declined by approximately − 40.84% and − 45.38%, respectively, relative to the previous four years across the country. Besides, an improvement in O3 has been observed (15.62%) in most regions, which can be due to the drop in particulate matter in relation to the decline in NOx. It is obvious from the outcomes that the lockdown implementation has contributed to a major change in air quality and could be placed into action as an additional way of decreasing emissions from different sources. Moreover, the findings will be the key issue for decision-makers to implement necessary measures to control the air pollutants and mortality rate.

The present study would have a huge impact on post-pandemic crisis management of air quality, especially for megacities. The policymakers would have the opportunities to redesign the existing air quality regulatory mechanism. The study would provide concrete evidence on how the human anthropogenic activity has affected the composition of the lower atmosphere. Apart from this, the neutrality of climatic variables on COVID-19 outbreak and its associated daily cases has also been established from this research. In Indian condition (our research findings), there is a positive relationship between the increasing air temperature and the total number of Corona positive cases. However, some studies in other parts of the world have found that there is a significant relationship between changing air temperature and COVID-19 outbreak. Moreover, spread of others SARS virus was also affected by the air temperature. Therefore, the present study does a statistical experiment based on available data of mentioned variables in India. It has been found that temperature is not an important determining element for increasing COVID-19 positive cases. This particular direction of situations related to the outbreak should be helpful to the future researches in relation to this field. The new wave of COVID-19 has already faced by different parts of the world, and India is considered one of the severe countries in this perspective. And the third wave has also been found in the western part of the India. So, the efficient research and its outcome are needed to tackle the new stream of this virus in optimal way.

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary file1 (DOCX 123 KB)