AccScience Publishing / AJWEP / Volume 18 / Issue 4 / DOI: 10.3233/AJW210044
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Appraisal of Variation in Particulate Pollution Loading  with a Change Induced by Anthropogenic Cultural  Activity Over a South Indian City-Visakhapatnam

Kavitha Chandu1 Dharma Raju Akasapu2 Samudrala Venkata Jagannadha Kumar3 Madhavaprasad Dasari3*
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1 Department of Physics, GITAM Institute of Science, GITAM Deemed to be University Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India
2 India Meteorological Department, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Hyderabad, Telangana, India
3 India Meteorological Department, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India
AJWEP 2021, 18(4), 63–71; https://doi.org/10.3233/AJW210044
Submitted: 14 January 2021 | Revised: 11 May 2021 | Accepted: 11 May 2021 | Published: 18 November 2021
© 2021 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC-by the license) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )
Abstract

The study focusses on the variation of air quality assessed from mass concentrations of air pollutants  in the year 2020 (particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10), sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon  monoxide (CO) and ozone (O3)) amidst COVID–19 restrictions on firework activity during Diwali festive period  in Visakhapatnam city. The results are compared with 2018 and 2019. The results indicate that the firework activity  affected ambient air quality. The effect is lower in 2020 than in 2018 and even in 2019. In 2019, the effect is  lower compared to 2018 due to the washout of pollutants caused by unusual rains on those days.

Keywords
Visakhapatnam
air pollution
diwali festival
fireworks
particulate matter
trace gases.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare they have no competing interests.
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Asian Journal of Water, Environment and Pollution, Electronic ISSN: 1875-8568 Print ISSN: 0972-9860, Published by AccScience Publishing