Potential impact of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on environmental parameters

Received 11 August 2020 Accepted 15 October 2020

and 2014. None of these attained the spatial level and the extensive impacts that the new COVID-19 did (Cheval et al., 2020).
Human activities, industrialization, climate change, global warming, population increase, technologies, crisis etc. caused effect on the environment and enhanced the environmental contamination. On the other hand, natural phenomenon, such as volcanos, dust storm, fires, deforestation, flood etc. increased environmental pollution as well. COVID-19 PL affected the environmental issues via decreasing some factors and increasing others. A number of researches regarding the effect of COVID-19 PL on air quality (Kerimray et al., 2020;Li et al., 2020), air pollution (He et al., 2020), air quality and water quality in India (Lokhandwala and Gautam, 2020), air quality and meteorological variables , air quality, noise, beaches, and recycling (Zambrano-Monserrate et al., 2020), surface water quality (Yunus et al., 2020), air and water quality (Cheval et al., 2020), GIS (Sarwar et al., 2020), solid waste (Ouhsine et al., 2020), stone quarrying and crushing areas (Mandal and Pal, 2020), solid waste and beach evaluation in Ecuador (Ormaza-Gonzales and Castro-Rodas, 2020) were published. But to date, there is no published research on the effect of COVID-19 PL on the environmental parameters like solid waste, noise, air, water, wastewater (WW), soil and green areas, natural environment and resources, light pollution, radiation pollution, energy and others.
Therefore, the objective of this research was to examine the impact of COVID-19 PL on the mentioned environmental parameters. To date, this kind of study is not available in the extant literature.

Materials and methods
The current work focused on the studying of the impact of COVID-19 PL on the environmental factors. Environmental issues comprise of numerous parameters such as solid waste, noise, air, water, WW, soil and green areas, natural environment and resources, light pollution, radiation pollution, energy and others. Each parameter was divided into sub-parameters. For this purpose, seventy environmental factors were studied during COVID-19 PL. The environmental limits were chosen and tested based on the experience, visiting site, and the references (Chadderton 2004;Wang et al., 2010;Aziz and Ali, 2018;Aziz et al., 2019;Rangwala, 2019). Assessment for the parameters were conducted. Effect of COVID-19 PL on the environmental issues were labeled as increasing (+1), remained as before COVID-19 PL (0), or decreasing (-1). Additionally, positive, nil, and negative influences of the factors on the environment were studied. The current work focused on the Erbil City, Kurdistan Region (KR)-Iraq environment and the global environment as well. Data were collected from Erbil City and the sources. Tabulated data were compared to the published works. Partial lockdown and closing of some areas such as schools, universities, car shows, beauty salons etc. in Erbil City, KR-Iraq started at the end of February 2020. While, full lockdowns on 14 March 2020 to 23 April 2020, 24 to 26 May 2020, 1 to 3 June 2020 and 1 to 4 July 2020 were executed in Erbil City, Figure  1. For the periods 23 April 2020 and till 28 July 2020, partially lockdowns with application of various scenarios were performed.

Results and Discussions
The details of the COVID-19 PL effect on the environmental issues such as solid waste, noise, and air are illustrated in Table 1 and Figure 2.

Solid Waste
Commonly the quantity of municipal solid waste (MSW) deceased during COVID-19 PL due to stopping and delaying activities such industrial, commercial, institutional etc. Lockdown caused decreasing of industrial, commercial, demolition, and construction etc. Additionally, the beaches improved during the quarantine. On the other hand, hospital wastes increased during the lockdown due to increasing of patient numbers in the hospitals. People stayed at home and bought daily requirements in the markets, this led to enhancing of domestic and local market wastes in Erbil City.
Published data confirmed solid waste information in Table 1 and Figure 2.

Noise Pollution
Noise pollution sources are traffic, aircraft, machines, conversation, sounds etc. (Aziz, 2012). COVID-19 PL causes closing of markets, industrial areas, institutional, sport areas, worship places etc. Lock downs resulted in decreasing noise at commercial, industrial, worship, and sport areas. In addition, it reduced traffic, aircraft, underground, machine noises as well (Table 1 and Figure 2).
Erbil-Kirkuk Main Road, Erbil-Iraq before and during COVID-19 PL is illustrated in Figure 3. This street is very crowded, especially during daily hours, because a number of Ministries (Ministry of higher education and Scientific Research, Communication and Transportation), Directorates (Water Resources, Agriculture, Zanco Bank, Central Library, Zanco Hospital, Heart Hospital, Traffic Police, and Transportation), Presidency of universities (Salahaddin University-Erbil, and Erbil Polytechnic University), colleges (Education, Arts, Science, and Engineering), and Institutes (Erbil Technical Institute, and Erbil Administration Institute), hotels, student hostels, stadium, car shows, restaurants, fuel stations, shops, markets etc. are located on this street, Figure 3.
Traffic noise pollution on this road was 58 to 85 dB before COVID-19 PL, and air craft noise was 73 dB before lockdown (Aziz, 2008;Aziz et al., 2012).
It is clear quarantine decreased traffic, aircraft and other noises in Erbil City. A number of researchers focused on the effect of COVID-19 PL on some environmental factors (for instance noise pollution) in China, USA, Italy, and Spain. They stated that the lockdown caused reduction in environmental noise (Zambrano-Monserrate et al., 2020). At stone quarrying and crushing areas in India, noise level before and during COVID-19 PL were 85 dBA and 65 dBA, respectively (Mandal and Pal, 2020). The results confirm the noise information in Table  1 and Figure 2. Alternatively, people staying at home increased noise pollution at home and at residential areas.

Air pollution
Air quality index (AQI) and concentrations for PM 2.5, PM 10, NO2, and O3 in Erbil City before and throughout COVID-19 PL are shown in Figure 4 and    Table 1 presented that air quality parameters reduced during quarantine. Improvement of green areas and reduction of air pollutants led to enhance the oxygen ratio. Published and collected data on air confirm the information in Table 1 and Figure 2.

Water
Influences of the COVID-19 PL on the quantity and quality of water are presented in Table 3 and Figure 5. Yunus et al. (2020) reported that COVID-19 caused improvement of surface water quality in the Vembanad Lake, the longest freshwater lake in India. Cheval et al. (2020) reported that COVID-19 PL improved water quality in the urban areas. During lockdown at stone quarrying and crushing areas in India, adjacent river water was qualitatively enhanced due to stoppage of dust release to the river.
Total dissolved solids level in river water neighboring to crushing unit decreased by nearly two times (Mandal and Pal, 2020). Documents from all over the world are specifying that after COVID-19 PL, water quality in rivers improved and nature showed signs of recovery (Lokhandwala and Gautam, 2020).
Lockdown caused decreasing of water consumption in commercial, industrial, institutional, tourist, worship etc. areas. Additionally, stopping and postponing the activities led to decreasing pollutants in the water sources and enhancing water quality.
Quarantine minimized hunting which led to the increase of fish and other aquatic lives. Published works support the ideas in the Table 3 and Figure 5.  Effect of COVID-19 PL on the WW are shown in Table  3 and Figure 5. Of course, lockdown of commercial, industrial, institutional, tourist, worship and other areas caused deceasing of municipal WW (MWW) amount. Alternatively, black water and yellow water (urine) remain as before. Staying at homes led to increase of domestic WW quantity. Hospital WW discharge increased due to rising number of patients and other activities in the hospitals and labs. Industrial and commercial WWs decreased due to limitation of the industrial works. MWW characteristics improved and the amount of water pollutants reduced due to stopping and delaying activities in several sectors.

Soil and Green Areas
COVID-19 PL caused restriction of the human activities and commonly eliminated tourist; this led to increase of green areas and decreasing soil contamination, Figure 6. When green areas enhanced, corrosion decrease gradually and enhance oxygen ratio and berating.
Details of influence of COVID-19 PL on soil and green areas are shown in Table 3 Table 3 and Figure 5. COVID-19 PL can be regarded as a breathing of the natural environment and decreased contaminants, Figures 1, 3, and 6. Fire occurrence, hunting, and cutting of the trees were eliminated (or minimized) throughout COVID-19 PL due to control of human activities. Movement of animals and birds became more frequent, Figures 1 and 7. Oil extraction, mining, and quarry works were limited and it resulted in decreasing of environmental pollution.  Table 3 and Figure 5. While, natural lighting and radiation normally remained as before COVID-19 PL. Throughout COVID-19 PL most of the commercial, industrial, institutional, worship, and other sectors were closed and this led to decreasing the light pollution.

Energy
Lockdown by COVID-19 resulted in decreasing of fuel consumption, Table 3 and Figure 5. On the other hand, the use of natural fuel sources and biogas commonly remained as before or increased, especially in the countryside areas.

Others
Lastly, COVID-19 PL increased some issues such as rodents and composting. While, it decreased others like pesticides and tourist, Table 3 and Figure 5. Due to control of human activities during COVID-19, appearance and movement of rodents and animals were more frequent than before the lockdown.
The use of pesticides decreased because of the lockdown as well. Instead, staying at home led to increasing of composting process by some people. Till 17 July 2020, tourist areas and public parks in Erbil City, KR-Iraq were generally closed.
Of course, closing of tourist zones and gardens directed to decreasing of environmental pollution such as noise, water, light and air and caused a decrease of solid waste.
3.11. Positive, nil, and negative impacts Impacts of the environmental parameters on the environment are illustrated in Table 4.
Positive, nil, and negative impacts of the environmental issues on the environment during COVID-19 PL were detected. As a result, positive, nil, and negative effects of the parameters on the environment caused by COVID-19 PL were 81.43 %, 5.71 %, and 12.86 %, respectively. Cheval et al. (2020) stated that COVID19-PL led to negative impacts on the environment such as shoreline contamination due to the disposal of sanitary consumables. Beside of the great threats and losing many things during COVID-19 PL, it served the environment in several directions and it regarded as a respiration of the environment.  (McEldowney and Fletcher, 1988;Rickard and Boulding, 2015). Variations of temperature, cloud and humidity, pressure, rainfall amount and rain days, and wind in Erbil City are shown in Figures 8. It can be seen from Figure 8 that temperature, and cloud and humidity commonly remained as before COVID-19, while, pressure decreased in 2020. Additionally, amount of rainfall and wind speed generally increased during COVID-19. In 2020, pressure, rainfall, and wind varied in Erbil City and they had an impact on living organisms. Sufficient historical data is essential for forecasting of COVID-19 spreading in different seasons. At the same time, no prediction is definite as the future infrequently repeats itself in the same way as the past. Furthermore, estimates are affected by the dependability of the information, vested benefits, and what variables are being forecasted.
Correspondingly, psychological parameters play an important role in how people observe and respond to the risk from the disease and the anxiety that it may influence them personally (Petropoulos and Makridakis, 2020).
Additionally, Gupta et al. (2020) reported that the influence of weather on COVID-19 spread is poorly unstated. Limited published works have claimed that warm weather can probably decrease the global pandemic. Mecenas et al. (2020) concluded that warm and wet climates seem to decrease the spread of COVID-19. The confidence of the confirmation generated was classified as low. Though, only temperature and humidity parameters could not clarify most of the changeability in disease transmission.

Conclusions
Till 28 July 2020, 16,301,736 confirmed cases of COVID-19 were recognized by WHO, including 650,069 deaths. COVID-19 PL affected our life, movement, political, sports, business, industries, economy, oil, social relationship, journey, tourist, working hours, education etc. and it changed/inversed many things. It affected the natural environment as well. Results showed that COVID-19 PL increased a number of parameters, such as domestic and hospital wastes, noise at home, aquatic life and water quality, domestic WW amount, green areas, animal and birds movement, natural energy, rodents etc.; whereas, it decreased numerous factors, for example commercial/industrial solid waste, traffic and outdoor noises, air pollution and particles, water contamination, WW production, cutting trees and hunting, fuel extraction and mining, artificial light and radiation, fuel combustion, tourist and picnic etc.
Alternatively, some parameters such as black water, natural radiation, and ordinary lighting remained as before COVID-19 PL. Positive, nil, and negative influences of the factors on the environment caused by COVID-19 PL were 81.43 %, 5.71 %, and 12.86 %, respectively. Positive effects of the COVID-19 PL on the environment were superior than the negative impacts and lockdowns and can be regarded as a breathing period of the natural environment. In 2020, pressure, rainfall, and wind varied in Erbil City and they had the impact on microorganisms. Presently, forecasting of season influence on spreading COVID-19 is not easy.