Impact of Covid-19 on Yamuna River water quality: Possible ways to rejuvenate the riverine ecosystem in national capital of India
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12775/EQ.2024.015Keywords
Yamuna Water Quality, Delhi Stretch, Pandemic, COVID-19, BOD, STPs, IWRMAbstract
The water quality of Yamuna River was studied for four years from 2019 until August 2022. The period witnessed the onset of COVID-19 pandemic and government-imposed complete lockdown which caused slight improvement in the water quality. Five parameters pH, Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Dissolved Oxygen (DO) and Faecal Coliform (FC) monitored by Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) were analyzed to see the changes in water quality of Yamuna River in the Delhi stretch before the onset of COVID-19 (2019), during the COVID-19 (2020 and 2021) and after the pandemic (2022). Maximum improvement in some water quality parameters were observed only during the 1st lockdown in the year 2020 when government had imposed complete restriction on the movement of people and industries were not functioning at there maximum capacity. The water quality again declined in the year 2021 and further in the year 2022. Major cause of pollution was the untreated waste reaching the river from various drains. Therefore, it is extremely important to intersect all the major and minor drains through Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs). The floodplain of the river needs to be managed to keep the pollution in control.
References
Awasthi A., Sharma A., Kaur P., Gugamsetty B. & Kumar A., 2021, Statistical interpretation of environmental influencing parameters on COVID‑19 during the lockdown in Delhi, India. Environment, Development and Sustainability 23: 8147–8160. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-020-01000-9
Chakraborty B., Roy S., Bera A., Adhikary P.P., Bera B., Sengupta D., Bhunia G.S. & Shit P.K., 2021, Cleaning the river Damodar (India): impact of COVID‑19 lockdown on water quality and future rejuvenation strategies. Environment, Development and Sustainability 23: 11975–11989. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-020-01152-8.
Chakraborty S., Mitra A., Pramanick P., Zaman S. & Mitra A., 2020, Scanning the water quality of lower Gangetic delta during COVID-19 lockdown phase using dissolved oxygen (DO) as proxy. NUJS Journal of Regulatory Studies Special Issue.
Chaudhary V., Bhadola P., Kaushik A., Khalid M., Furukawa H. & Khosla A., 2022, Assessing temporal correlation in environmental risk factors to design efficient area‑specific COVID‑19 regulations: Delhi based case study 2: 12949. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-16781-4
CPCB, 2020, Report on impact of lockdown on River Yamuna water quality. Retrieved from https://cpcb.nic.in/index.php
DPCC Report 2020.Assessment of Yamuna River Water Quality during the Lockdown period. Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) Report, April 2020.
El Morabet R., Khan, R.A., Alsubih M., Khan N.A. Yusuf M., Khan P., Hrynzovskyi A., Kаlashchenko S. & Lutsak O., 2023, Epidemiology study of Diarrhoea, Cholera, Typhoid, Hepatitis A and Hepatitis E in Middle East and North Africa Region. Ecological Questions 34(4): 1–21. https://doi.org/10.12775/EQ.2023.044
Khan R., Saxena A., Shukla S., Sekar S. & Goel P., 2021, Effect of COVID-19 lockdown on the water quality index of River Gomti, India, with potential hazard of faecal-oral transmission. Environmental Science and Pollution Research 28: 33021–33029. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-13096-1.
Khan S., Srivastava R., Khan A.R. & Hrynzovskyi A.M., 2023, Study of Covid-19-Related Ecological Habitat of College Students: A Survey. Ecological Questions 34(2): 1–15. https://doi.org/10.12775/EQ.2023.021
Kryvenko I., Hrynzovskyi A. & Chalyy K., 2023, The Internet of Medical Things in the Patient-Centered Digital Clinic’s Ecosystem, [in:] Faure, E., Danchenko O., Bondarenko M., Tryus Y., Bazilo C., Zaspa G. (eds) Information Technology for Education, Science, and Technics. ITEST 2022. Lecture Notes on Data Engineering and Communications Technologies, vol 178. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35467-0_31
Lokhandwala S. & Gautam P., 2020, Indirect impact of COVID-19 on environment: A brief study in Indian context. Environmental Research 188, 109807.
Mandal P., 2010, Seasonal and spatial variation of Yamuna River water quality in Delhi, India. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 170: 661–670. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-009-1265-2
Mangla S., Pathak A.K., Arshad M., Ghosh D., Sahoo P.K., Garg V.K. & Haque U. 2021, Impact of Environmental Indicators on the COVID-19 Pandemic in Delhi, India. Pathogens 10, 1003. https://doi.org/10.3390/pathogens10081003
Parween M., Ramanathan A.L. & Raju N.J., 2017, Waste water management and water quality of river Yamuna in the megacity of Delhi. International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology 14: 2109–2124. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-017-1280-8
Patel P.P., Mondol S. & Ghosh K.G., 2020, Some respite for India's dirtiest river? Examining the Yamuna's water quality at Delhi during the COVID-19 lockdown period. Science of the Total Environment 744, 140851.
Robin R.S., Purvaja R., Ganguly D., Hariharan G., Paneerselvam A., Sundari R.T., Karthik R., Neethu C.S., Saravanakumar C., Semanti P., Prasad M.H.K., Mugilarasan M., Rohan S., Arumugam K., Samuel V.D. & Ramesh R., 2021, COVID-19 restrictions and their influences on ambient air, surface water and plastic waste in a coastal megacity, Chennai, India. Marine Pollution Bulletin 171: 112739.
Sharma D. & Kansal A., 2011, Water quality analysis of River Yamuna using water quality index in the national capital territory, India (2000–2009). Applied Water Science 1: 147–157. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13201-011-0011-4
Sharma S. & Gupta A., 2022, Impact of COVID‑19 on Water Quality Index of river Yamuna in Himalayan and upper segment: analysis of monsoon and post‑monsoon season. Applied Water Science 12(6), 115. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13201-022-01625-3
Singh B.P. & Kumar P, 2021, Spatio-temporal variation in fine particulate matter and effect on air quality during the COVID-19 in New Delhi, India. Urban Climate 40, 101013.
Singh B.P., Rana P., Mittal N., Kumar S., Athar M., Abduljaleel Z & Rahman S., 2022, Variations in the Yamuna River Water Quality During the COVID-lockdowns. Frontiers in Environmental Science 10, 940640. https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2022.940640
Somani M., Srivastava A.N., Gummadivalli S.K. & Sharma A., 2020, Indirect implications of COVID-19 towards sustainable environment: An investigation in Indian context. Bioresource Technology Reports 11, 100491.
Tokatli C. & Varol M., 2021, Impact of the COVID-19 lockdown period on surface water quality in the Meriç-Ergene River Basin, Northwest Turkey. Environmental Research 197, 111051.
Yashvardhin N., Kumar A., Gaurav M., Sayrav K. & Jha D.K., 2022, Positive impact of COVID-19 induced lockdown on the environment of India’s national capital, Delhi. Spatial Information Research 30(2): 249–259. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41324-021-00427-0
Yunus A.P., Masago Y. & Hijioka Y., 2020, COVID-19 and surface water quality: Improved lake water quality during the lockdown. Science of the Total Environment 731, 139012.
Zahorodniuk K., Voitsekhovsky V., Korobochka A., Hrynzovskyi A. & Averyanov V., 2019, Development of modernized paper filtering materials for water purification, assessment of their properties. East-European Journal of Enterprise Technologies 1(10): 6–13. https://doi.org/10.15587/1729-4061.2019.156534
Zargar A.R., 2019, Hindu festival in India marred by a river of toxic foam and a blanket of killer smog. CBS News, 5th November. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/yamuna-rivers-toxic-foam-and-delhi-air-pollution-greet-india-hindu-devotees-for-chhath-puja-festival/
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Umamah M, N A Khan, N Sadaf N, Mufti A, Farooqi I, M A Khan, Gauhar M, Kashif Ali, S Gautam, A S Khan, Renu Dhupper, Sergij Vambol
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Stats
Number of views and downloads: 789
Number of citations: 0
