Impact of COVID-19 lockdown on the particulate matter over Perungudi, Chennai, India

The nationwide lockdown of Phase-1 in India was started from March 25 to April 14, 2020 and Phase-2 from April 15 to May 3, 2020 with severe restrictions on public activities in India. Utilizing the particulate matter PM₁₀ and PM_2.5 data recorded during this adverse time, the present study is undertaken to assess the impact of phase 1 and 2 lockdown on the air quality of Perungudi, Chennai, India. The data obtained from the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board was assessed for lockdown phase. We compared particulate matter data for the unlock phase with a coinciding period in March 2020 to determine the changes in pollutant concentrations during the lockdown period of April 2020. The descriptive analysis of PM continuous data was performed to determine the mean, standard deviation, variance, skew and kurtosis to identify the nature of data. Correlogram analysis gives the information that the data under study has non-stationary behaviour and not random. Along with this linear regression analysis were performed to determine the relationship and trend for the data. The results revealed decreasing trend in the concentrations (PM₁₀, PM_2.5).