Assessment of Rainfall acidity and alkalinity before and during the COVID-19 community lockdown in Metro Manila
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Date
2023
Authors
Arvin C. Garcia
Vince Justin G. Tagoctoc
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Abstract
The implication of community quarantine in Metro Manila, which lasted for a few months, as counter-measure to control the escalatingCOVID-19 pandemic, has dramatically restricted anthropogenic activities that may lead to rainfall acidity. This study aims to assess the effect of the COVID-19 lockdown on the rainwater composition of Metro Manila. The assessment was based on the data collected from Acid Deposition Monitoring Network in East Asia (EANET) for the study period from 2000 to 2021. The study employed statistical techniques such as Pearson correlation to see the relationship of rainfall pH concentration to meteorological parameters (rainfall amount, temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, wind direction) and the Mann-Kendall test to determine the direction and significance of the detected rainfall acidity trends, while Sen's slope determined the magnitude of its increase or decrease. Two-sample t-test identifying if the pre and during lockdown has a significant difference. The accumulated results showed that among all the meteorological parameters used in this study, only the wind speed was found to have no significant correlation to the rainfall pH. However, the difference between the two periods using the t-test shows, that the lockdown period has a lesser pH value, not necessarily crossing the regular rain threshold line but remaining mostly alkaline than pre-lockdown.