Chapter 6
Aftermath of Industrial Pollution, Post
COVID-19 Quarantine on Environment
Raj Shekhar Sharma, Divyansh Panthari, Shikha Semwal, and Tripti Uniyal
Abstract Human beings always stride toward the protection of the environment and
global climate change at various levels. Though, due to diverse reasons our efforts
were not enough. But now as the outbreak of COVID-19 has hit mankind globally,
many countries are forced to implement self-quarantine, resulting in anthropogenic
activities across the globe coming to a halt, especially in production/manufacturing.
It has been clearly established that ever growing industrialization for the last two
decades has immensely polluted the atmosphere, biosphere, and hydrosphere; also
other overlooked concerns like noise pollution, soil pollution, etc., never gets
adequate attention. As recently, all the activities have been seized considerably,
the pollution level in the environment is expected to go down within a curtailed
period. This chapter undertakes a brief and specific scenario of industrial pollution
during lockdown; hence, the aim is to be focused on the dissemination of information
in general, related to the current parameters regarding the status of the decreased
level of industrial pollution in air, water, and soil. In the context of water pollution we have discussed the improvement of water quality in terms of change in
pH, total dissolved solids (TDS), suspended particulate matter (SPM), biological
oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), heavy metal contamination in sewage as well as ground water, and biological parameters like reduction in
coliforms, fecal coliforms, organic wastes, planktonic population, etc., whereas in
case of air pollution it was found that there has been a sharp drop in the major air
R. S. Sharma
Department of Microbiology, School of Basic and Applied Science, Sri Guru Ram Rai University,
Dehradun, India
e-mail: sharmarajshekhar@gmail.com
T. Uniyal
Department of Zoology, Ram Chandra Uniyal PG College, Uttarkashi, India
e-mail: uniyaltripti@gmail.com
D. Panthari (B) · S. Semwal
Department of Botany, School of Basic and Applied Science, Sri Guru Ram Rai University,
Dehradun, India
e-mail: divyanshpanthari@gmail.com
S. Semwal
e-mail: shikhssemwal@gmail.com
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
C. Chakraborty et al. (eds.), The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Green Societies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66490-9_6
141
Aftermath of Industrial Pollution, Post
COVID-19 Quarantine on Environment
Raj Shekhar Sharma, Divyansh Panthari, Shikha Semwal, and Tripti Uniyal
Abstract Human beings always stride toward the protection of the environment and
global climate change at various levels. Though, due to diverse reasons our efforts
were not enough. But now as the outbreak of COVID-19 has hit mankind globally,
many countries are forced to implement self-quarantine, resulting in anthropogenic
activities across the globe coming to a halt, especially in production/manufacturing.
It has been clearly established that ever growing industrialization for the last two
decades has immensely polluted the atmosphere, biosphere, and hydrosphere; also
other overlooked concerns like noise pollution, soil pollution, etc., never gets
adequate attention. As recently, all the activities have been seized considerably,
the pollution level in the environment is expected to go down within a curtailed
period. This chapter undertakes a brief and specific scenario of industrial pollution
during lockdown; hence, the aim is to be focused on the dissemination of information
in general, related to the current parameters regarding the status of the decreased
level of industrial pollution in air, water, and soil. In the context of water pollution we have discussed the improvement of water quality in terms of change in
pH, total dissolved solids (TDS), suspended particulate matter (SPM), biological
oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), heavy metal contamination in sewage as well as ground water, and biological parameters like reduction in
coliforms, fecal coliforms, organic wastes, planktonic population, etc., whereas in
case of air pollution it was found that there has been a sharp drop in the major air
R. S. Sharma
Department of Microbiology, School of Basic and Applied Science, Sri Guru Ram Rai University,
Dehradun, India
e-mail: sharmarajshekhar@gmail.com
T. Uniyal
Department of Zoology, Ram Chandra Uniyal PG College, Uttarkashi, India
e-mail: uniyaltripti@gmail.com
D. Panthari (B) · S. Semwal
Department of Botany, School of Basic and Applied Science, Sri Guru Ram Rai University,
Dehradun, India
e-mail: divyanshpanthari@gmail.com
S. Semwal
e-mail: shikhssemwal@gmail.com
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
C. Chakraborty et al. (eds.), The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Green Societies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66490-9_6
141