In late 2019, the world met with a global pandemic that affected every country without mercy.
Starting from China, the novel coronavirus spread its arms to Italy, followed by Russia, India, and now the whole world is in the clasp of this unseen virus. The new class of coronavirus, i.e., SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2), is responsible for the occurrence of this deadly disease and has brought this world to its knees.
The rapid human to human spread was the most dangerous aspect of this virus. And to this, every nation came up with their strategies to slow down the transmission of disease by quarantining the suspected persons, restricting large gathering, maintaining complete or partial lockdown, etc. Hence, never before has humanity faced such a testing time together.
Do you think that lockdown has brought only bad things to us?
Remember! There is always something good in every bad.
While we were locked inside our homes, our mother earth was healing. Though there has been a burgeoning industrial growth in the last few decades, we have paid a heavy price for this development in terms of poisoning the air we breathe and the water we drink.
As the coronavirus started spreading like a chain reaction, many countries have adopted lockdown procedures that stopped people from moving out, shopping, going to restaurants, industries, and another establishment to close down. These proved to be a godsend for the environment.
Let's have a look at the following -
1. AIR QUALITY
As we all are aware of the fact that there was a spike in the Air Quality Index in the National Capital Region last year. Following this, the Delhi government had to shut down the schools, while at least 32 flights have been diverted at the Delhi airport as a thick blanket of smog engulfed several parts of the city.
Not only India but the rapidly increasing air pollution is a matter of concern for the whole world. The lockdown period led to a rapid decrease in pollution levels.
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| https://www.indiatoday.in/ |
2. WATER QUALITY
The shutting of industries and human activities for more than a month now has led to cleaner water bodies. There is less discharge of chemicals into the water bodies.
Hence, be it the Vembanad Lake or river Ganga, the surface water quality has improved. Also, because of less human indulgence, it has led to the improvement of animal habitats.
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| https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ |
3. SOIL QUALITY
When nature hits the anthropause button, there is less aggregation of plastic waste, which not only takes millions of years to degrade but also causes harm to animals. Therefore, less litter means less danger to flora and fauna around us.
4. EFFECTS ON WILDLIFE & VEGETATION
You must have heard the news during lockdown that animals being seen moving around freely in the street of various cities as there is a lack of human interference in their habitat. Also, the decrease in fishing and boating increased fish biomass. Better air and water quality, on the other hand, provided a better atmosphere for plant growth.
So let's conclude our article with the inevitable fact that both humankind and mother nature are interdependent and need the support of one other to survive.
Shutting off for a few months solved the problems which our scientists were trying to do for so many years. Maybe these changes are temporary, but this made us realize that the judicial use of present resources can bring us a healed environment.
-Written by:
Ms. Sapna Kumari (Batch-2017)
