Spatiotemporal changes in tropospheric nitrogen dioxide hotspot due to emission switch-off condition in the view of lockdown emergency in India

The COVID-19 outbreak has elicited forced lockdown conditions for all anthropogenic emissions across the globe. It has brought an opportunity for the researchers to sort out the relative contribution of the environmental pollutants which are emerged from the coal-based thermal power plants and other industrial sectors. In countries like India, some industrial sectors and thermal power plants coexist; henceforth, they mutually produce NO₂ concentration canopy in the upper atmosphere in raised form. Focusing on this issue, the present work intends to explore the NO₂ emission hot-spots' foci using switch-off conditions in consequence of emergency lockdown. Our results indicate that stable ${(CV}_{\mathrm{low}}\mathrm{and}\mathrm{NO}{2}_{\max })$ and large NO₂ concentration canopy is noticeable in the inter-state border areas among Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Jharkhand (around "Govind Ballabh Part Sagar" reservoir) where a cluster of thermal power plant is located. The "OFF" situation also proposes a close correspondence between the NO₂ richness column and installed capacity (R ² value > 0.7 with 0.0002 p value). States that are situated in the eastern part of the country and megacities like Delhi and Kolkata represent a crucial role in NO₂ emission while in certain regions of south India are more or less safe from NO₂ emission. As a consequence, the lockdown has created a temporary pollution baseline for tropospheric NO₂ that offers research prospects to think of alternate sources of energy that can maintain environmental health as well as human well-being.