SORA

Advancing, promoting and sharing knowledge of health through excellence in teaching, clinical practice and research into the prevention and treatment of illness

Impact of Covid-19 Lockdown on Availability of Drinking Water in the Arsenic-Affected Ganges River Basin

Duttagupta, S; Bhanja, SN; Dutta, A; Sarkar, S; Chakraborty, M; Ghosh, A; Mondal, D; Mukherjee, A (2021) Impact of Covid-19 Lockdown on Availability of Drinking Water in the Arsenic-Affected Ganges River Basin. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18 (6). p. 2832. ISSN 1660-4601 https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18062832
SGUL Authors: Mondal, Debapriya

[img]
Preview
PDF Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.

Download (5MB) | Preview

Abstract

The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has not only resulted in immense loss of human life, but it also rampaged across the global economy and socio-cultural structure. Worldwide, countries imposed stringent mass quarantine and lockdowns to curb the transmission of the pathogen. While the efficacy of such lockdown is debatable, several reports suggest that the reduced human activities provided an inadvertent benefit by briefly improving air and water quality. India observed a 68-days long, nation-wide, stringent lockdown between 24 March and 31 May 2020. Here, we delineate the impact of the lockdown on groundwater and river sourced drinking water sustainability in the arsenic polluted Ganges river basin of India, which is regarded as one of the largest and most polluted river basins in the world. Using groundwater arsenic measurements from drinking water wells and water quality data from river monitoring stations, we have studied ~700 km stretches of the middle and lower reaches of the As (arsenic)-polluted parts of the river for pre-lockdown (January–March 2020), syn-lockdown (April–May), and post-lockdown periods (June–July). We provide the extent of As pollution-free groundwater vis-à-vis river water and examine alleviation from lockdown as an opportunity for sustainable drinking water sources. The overall decrease of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) concentrations and increase of pH suggests a general improvement in Ganges water quality during the lockdown in contrast to pre-and-post lockdown periods, potentially caused by reduced effluent. We also demonstrate that land use (agricultural/industrial) and land cover (urban-periurban/rural) in the vicinity of the river reaches seems to have a strong influence on river pollutants. The observations provide a cautious optimistic scenario for potentially developing sustainable drinking water sources in the arsenic-affected Ganges river basin in the future by using these observations as the basis of proper scientifically prudent, spatially adaptive strategies, and technological interventions.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Keywords: MD Multidisciplinary, Toxicology
SGUL Research Institute / Research Centre: Academic Structure > Institute of Medical & Biomedical Education (IMBE)
Academic Structure > Institute of Medical & Biomedical Education (IMBE) > Centre for Clinical Education (INMECE )
Journal or Publication Title: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
ISSN: 1660-4601
Language: en
Dates:
DateEvent
10 March 2021Published
4 March 2021Accepted
Publisher License: Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0
Projects:
Project IDFunderFunder ID
DST/TM/INDO478UK/2K17/55(C)Department of Science and Technology, IndiaUNSPECIFIED
DST/TM/INDO478UK/2K17/55(G)Department of Science and Technology, IndiaUNSPECIFIED
NE/R003386/1Natural Environment Research Councilhttp://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000270
DST-UKIERI2016-17-0064UK-India Education and Research Initiativehttp://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000732
URI: https://openaccess.sgul.ac.uk/id/eprint/113060
Publisher's version: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18062832

Actions (login required)

Edit Item Edit Item