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A Satellite-Based Spatio-Temporal Machine Learning Model to Reconstruct Daily PM<sub>2.5</sub> Concentrations across Great Britain
oleh: Rochelle Schneider, Ana M. Vicedo-Cabrera, Francesco Sera, Pierre Masselot, Massimo Stafoggia, Kees de Hoogh, Itai Kloog, Stefan Reis, Massimo Vieno, Antonio Gasparrini
| Format: | Article |
|---|---|
| Diterbitkan: | MDPI AG 2020-11-01 |
Deskripsi
Epidemiological studies on the health effects of air pollution usually rely on measurements from fixed ground monitors, which provide limited spatio-temporal coverage. Data from satellites, reanalysis, and chemical transport models offer additional information used to reconstruct pollution concentrations at high spatio-temporal resolutions. This study aims to develop a multi-stage satellite-based machine learning model to estimate daily fine particulate matter (PM<sub>2.5</sub>) levels across Great Britain between 2008–2018. This high-resolution model consists of random forest (RF) algorithms applied in four stages. Stage-1 augments monitor-PM<sub>2.5</sub> series using co-located PM<sub>10</sub> measures. Stage-2 imputes missing satellite aerosol optical depth observations using atmospheric reanalysis models. Stage-3 integrates the output from previous stages with spatial and spatio-temporal variables to build a prediction model for PM<sub>2.5</sub>. Stage-4 applies Stage-3 models to estimate daily PM<sub>2.5</sub> concentrations over a 1 km grid. The RF architecture performed well in all stages, with results from Stage-3 showing an average cross-validated R<sup>2</sup> of 0.767 and minimal bias. The model performed better over the temporal scale when compared to the spatial component, but both presented good accuracy with an R<sup>2</sup> of 0.795 and 0.658, respectively. These findings indicate that direct satellite observations must be integrated with other satellite-based products and geospatial variables to derive reliable estimates of air pollution exposure. The high spatio-temporal resolution and the relatively high precision allow these estimates (approximately 950 million points) to be used in epidemiological analyses to assess health risks associated with both short- and long-term exposure to PM<sub>2.5</sub>.