Received: 31 May 2020
Accepted: 31 May 2020
Published online: 03 Jun 2020
Sehrish Manan,1 Muhammad Wajid Ullah,1 Zhanhu Guo,2 Guang Yang1,*
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074 China
2 Integrated Composites Laboratory, Department of Chemical & Environmental Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37966 USA
*Correspondence
Guang Yang
E-mail: yang_sunny@yahoo.com
In December 2019, an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which was later named as COVID-19 by World Health Organization (WHO), emerged in Wuhan, China.[1] Since its outbreak, the disease has spread to more than 200 countries and was declared as pandemic on 11th March 2020 by WHO.[2,3] To contain the virus and prevent human-to-human transmission, several countries announced a complete lockdown to stop all kinds of human activities at avoidable levels. Despite the negative impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on the health system, economy, education, and others, it exerted an intriguing impact on the Earth's environment in several aspects, including the improved air and water quality, reduced noise pollution, and effect on wildlife; which are herein discussed.
Low-quality air is one of the main factors responsible for several respiratory diseases and causes a high number of mortalities worldwide.[4] According to a study, every year, 4.6 million people die because of disorders associated with bad air quality.[5] The air pollution-related deaths include aggravated asthma, bronchitis, respiratory allergies, lung and heart diseases, and emphysema.[4] Annually, the number of casualties caused by the poor air quality are more than motor vehicle accidents.[6] The extensive amount of NO2 and CO2 released by automobile and various manufacturing industries to the air is mainly responsible for air pollution.[7] The current COVID-19 pandemic greatly contributed to improving the air quality, especially in the countries and areas which are strictly observing the lockdown and quarantine measures.[8] A significant reduction in NO2 content in the air was first noticed near Wuhan, China, and its positive impact was thereafter monitored in other parts of the world, which showed a significant improvement in air quality. According to a report by NASA, NO2 and CO2 emissions have been reduced by 30% and 25%, respectively, in 2020.[8] According to another report by the European Space Agency, the NO2 traces over the city of Milan, Italy, is reduced by 35% during the lockdown period.[9] A study described the relationship between the COVID-19 fatality rate and the air quality in 66 regions of Europe. The data showed that 83% of all fatalities in Europe occurred in areas where NO2 concentration was higher than 100 μmoL/m2, while only 15.5% of deaths were reported in the regions where NO2 concentration was 50-100 μmoL/m2. In contrast, only 1.5% deaths were reported among the COVID-19 infected people where NO2 concentration was less than 50 μmoL/m2.[10] These results indicate that the high traces of air pollutants greatly contributed to the fatalities caused by COVID-19, possibly by intensifying the chronogeneity of respiratory diseases. Similarly, the reduced electricity consumption, for example up to 2-7% in Europe due to shutting down of various industries, has indirectly resulted in minimizing CO2 emission due to a reduced combustion of fuels for electricity generation.
Pandemic also showed a huge impact on wildlife worldwide. The anthropogenic noise disturbs the primary sensory systems of animals to communicate, recognize the cues to avoid predators, find mates,[11] and further influence the habitat quality and animal population.[12] The strict quarantine measures have reduced the number of visitors in the national parks and urban areas; thus, minimizing the human intervention in wildlife. Several animals have been spotted wandering in areas where they have not been seen for many years. Similarly, in response to heavy traffic and human activities during the daylight, several species adopted a nocturnal lifestyle.[13] Now with significantly minimized human activities, such sensitive species can be seen during the daytime. However, the negative impact of COVID-19 on wildlife cannot be neglected as the feeding of some animals is greatly dependent on human activities, mainly tourism. Now wandering animals are spotted in urban areas in search of food; thus, a prolonged pandemic may lead to greatly endanger the lives of such animals due to the lack of food alongside the all-time access to sufficient, nutritious, and safe food. Similarly, as wild food presents an essential part of the food basket, especially in poor societies,[14] the trend of killing wild animals may overcome the pandemic-induced food shortage, especially in rural areas where wild food resources are considered as important dietary items during the period of food shortage. Besides, a massive reduction in tourism also led to improved water quality due to reduced sewage discharge into the canals. Similarly, COVID-19 has greatly dropped the local and global shipping, which in turn has positively impacted the aquatic life and marine ecosystem by minimizing the turbidity and murkiness of water caused by the high boat traffic.[15] The COVID-19 pandemic has also greatly minimized the noise pollution due to restricted movement and ban on public transportation and industrial activities.[16]
Although it is still too early to comprehensively evaluate the global impact of COVID-19 on the environment, a few of its above-described positive impacts could provide a base for devising standard operating procedures (SOPs) for the future protection and preservation of natural environments. Standardization of human and industrial activities will ultimately lead to minimizing the death-toll associated with ambient air pollution and traffic accidents, preserve the wildlife and marine ecosystem, and ultimately heal nature.
All authors declare no competing financial conflict of interest associated with the publication of this work.
There is no additional supporting information for this paper.
References