- Pictures show that the nationwide lockdown in India has had a positive effect on air quality.
- Aerosol levels in North India are the lowest in 20 years, according to NASA.
- As summer temperatures kick in, things may not remain as rosy with dust storms brewing in the Thar Desert and Arabian Peninsula.
As over 1.3 billion people in the world’s second-most populous country stay indoors, North India now has the cleanest air it’s seen in 20 years.
India is home to some of the world’s most polluted air. However, with the lockdown in place, most pollution creating activities have been cut out of the equation.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (
NASA) satellite sensors detect that aerosol levels are at a record low in the region. These fine solid particles or liquid droplets in the air normally result from human activities. Things like factories, traffic congestion, and a high frequency of flights — anything that requires fossil fuels to burn — normally push air quality down to unhealthy levels.
“We knew we would see changes in atmospheric composition in many places during the lockdown. But I have never seen aerosol values so low in the Indo-Gangetic Plain at this time of year,” said Pawan Gupta, a scientist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.
Cities like Kanpur, Faridabad, Varanasi and even the national capital had some of the worst air in 2019, according to the World Health Organisation (
WHO).
Pictures show just how dramatic the fall in air pollution has been due to the nationwide lockdown in India: