A Time-Series Record during COVID-19 Lockdown Shows the High Resilience of Dissolved Heavy Metals in the Ganga River

The world's large rivers have been intensely studied to better understand the impact of climate change and direct human interventions on river water quality and quantity. Of particular importance is the extent to which industrial, domestic, and agricultural discharges are modifying the dissolved inorganic constituents (major elements, trace elements, nutrients, and heavy metals) of large river systems vis-a-vis water quality. The COVID-19 pandemic lockdown provides a rare opportunity to quantify the impact of restricted anthropogenic activities on the water chemistry resilience of large rivers. By analyzing the daily geochemical record of the Ganga River, we demonstrate that reduced industrial discharge during 51 days of mandated nationwide lockdown decreased the dissolved heavy metal concentrations by a minimum of 50%. In contrast, nitrate and phosphate inputs predominantly derived from agricultural runoff and domestic sewage maintained a chemical status quo as these sources were not impacted by the nationwide confinement or their residence time was longer than the characteristic time of the perturbation. We demonstrate the high resilience of dissolved heavy metals and conclude that industrial wastewater minimization programs will substantially improve heavy metal pollution of the Ganga River in a short time span of a few months.

Automated summary

Research shows that reducing industrial discharge during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown significantly decreased dissolved heavy metal concentrations in the Ganga River, while agricultural and domestic discharges remained unaffected. This highlights the potential for industrial wastewater minimization programs to rapidly improve heavy metal pollution in rivers.