ADVANCEMENT OF THE SCIENCE
(Government of Pakistan, 2017). The city has approximately 2,150 registered indus- tries and 3.9 million motor vehicles. The major sources of particulate matter in the city include vehicles and road dust (72%), industrial sources (16%), and combustion and steel industries (12%) (Khanum et al., 2021). Major industries in the city produce products including motorcycles, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, construction materials, steel, and engineering equipment. The par- ticulate matter in the city often surpasses WHO limits (Khanum et al., 2017). Peshawar is the capital of Khyber Pakh- tunkhwa, the smallest province of Pakistan. The population of the city is 1,970,942 and is continuously increasing due to migration of people looking for employment and edu- cational opportunities (Alam et al., 2015; Government of Pakistan, 2017). The city has a high urbanization rate, which con- tributes to increased vehicles. Industries in the city include paper, textiles, pharma- ceuticals, cigarettes, food processing, card- board, and furniture manufacturing. Conse- quently, the PM 10 and PM 2.5 are 16 and 10 times higher, respectively, than WHO limits (Zeb et al., 2018). Islamabad is the capital of Pakistan and the country’s ninth largest city. It is an urban city with a population of 1,014,825. Some indus- trial sectors (such as sectors I-9 and I-10) and heavy traffic of approximately 48,000 vehicles/day at some places (e.g., Faizabad interchange) are considered the main sources of particulate matter emissions in the city. Industries include steel mills, flour mills, marble factories, oil and ghee factories, cos- metic and pharmaceutical units, and pigment and paint manufacturing plants (Government of Pakistan, 2017; Mehmood et al., 2020). Data Collection and Analysis Our study used secondary data to evaluate the effect of lockdown on air quality of four major cities of Pakistan. Unfortunately, air quality data available for Pakistan are limited. The responsibility of monitoring air pollution lies with the Provincial Environmental Protection Agencies (EPA) and the Pakistan EPA. From 2006–2009, a network of air quality monitor- ing stations was installed in five major cities (i.e., Lahore, Karachi, Quetta, Islamabad, and Peshawar) with the support of the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
FIGURE 4
Air Quality Index (AQI) Pre- and Post-Lockdown in the Selected Cities in Pakistan
A: Karachi
250
Pre-Lockdown
Post-Lockdown
200
150
100
50
0
1/1/2020
2/1/2020 3/1/2020
4/1/2020
5/1/2020
6/1/2020
Date
B: Lahore
100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450
Post-Lockdown
Pre-Lockdown
0 50
1/1/2020
2/1/2020 3/1/2020
4/1/2020
5/1/2020
6/1/2020
Date
continued
The network included both fixed and mobile monitoring stations, a data center, and a central laboratory. Initially, JICA was responsible for the operations and then the responsibility shifted to the Provincial and Pakistan EPAs, but they could not sustain the operations due to budget and technical issues. PM 2.5 was monitored infrequently and data reliability was suboptimal (Sanchez- Triana et al., 2014). Pakistani authorities do not publish real-time air quality data (Sarfraz, 2020). Since April 2019, the U.S. Embassy and Consulates in Pakistan publish real-time air quality data for PM 2.5 for Islamabad, Kara- chi, Lahore, and Peshawar (data available at
www.airnow.gov) but do not measure other air quality parameters such as PM 10 , NO 2 , ozone, and SO 2 (U.S. Embassy and Consul- ates in Pakistan, 2020). The air quality parameter chosen for this study is fine particulate matter, which is com- monly referred to as PM 2.5 . The data for air quality were taken from the U.S. Embassy and Consulates from the AirNow website (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2020). To explore the effect of lockdown on air quality in terms of PM 2.5 , we took the following steps: 1. Raw PM 2.5 per hr readings in μg/m 3 were taken for each day from January 1, 2020, to June 7, 2020, for Islamabad and from Janu-
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Volume 85 • Number 6
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