Impact of COVID-19 lockdown on methane related activities in a tropical estuarine mangrove ecosystem

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic led to an immediate lockdown declared by the government of India (March to April 2020) which saw a decrease in public activities. In view of this, a comparative study was carried out on the influence of environmental parameters on methane activities between the pre-lockdown and lockdown periods along a tropical estuarine mangrove ecosystem. Significant changes in the studied parameters specially in the organic matter and methane production rates (P < 0.05) were observed. During the lockdown as compared to the pre-lockdown period, the downstream site was impacted more than those at the upstream site with an average methane production decrease by 60X and 1.5X respectively. Both, oxidation and production of methane decreased during the lockdown and was related to organic matter availability (P < 0.05). The findings elucidate the positive impact of lockdown on the model ecosystem and the reduction in greenhouse methane activities