An Appraisal of Covid-19 Lockdown on Water Quality of Deepor Beel- A Ramsar Wetland of India

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IJEP 43(7): 640-647 : Vol. 43 Issue. 7 (July 2023)

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Bhaswati Devi1, Suravi Kalita2, Ria Deb1, Nimisha Sarma1 and Arundhuti Devi1*

1. Institute of Advanced Study in Science and Technology, Environmental Chemistry Laboratory, Resource Management and Environment Section, Life Science Division, Guwahati, Assam – 781 035, India
2. Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, Mumbai, Maharashtra – 400 088, India

Abstract

The emergence of the infectious Coronavirus has paralysed almost every aspect of life and challenged humankind. Industrial and human activities were suddenly stopped to tackle the spread of the disease. The sudden halt crippled the economic sector but, at the same time, acted as a blessing for the environment. Various studies showed the lockdown’s positive impact on air and water quality. Here, in this paper, we tried to assess the water quality of Deepor Beel wetland (a Ramsar site in northeast India) during the lockdown period (2020) and then compared it with pre-lockdown (2019) and post-lockdown (2021) periods. We noted a substantial improvement in the physico-chemical parameters and the heavy metal concentration of water quality during the lockdown period. Unlike the pre-lockdown samples, lockdown water samples showed values of cobalt, chromium and lead below the detection level. We used the heavy metal pollution index (HPI) and the heavy metal evaluation index (HEI) for the water quality assessment. The HPI values being less than 100 for the monitoring sites during the lockdown period of 2020 as compared to the pre-lockdown period (2019) and unlock period (2021) indicated an improvement in the water quality during the lockdown period.

Keywords

Corona virus restrictions, Lockdown impact, Environment quality, Pollution indices, Water quality

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