Estimation of hourly PM1 concentration in China and its application in population exposure analysis

Particulate pollution is closely related to public health. PM1 (particles with an aerodynamic size not larger than 1 mu m) is much more harmful than particles with larger sizes because it goes deeper into the body and hence arouses social concern. However, the sparse and unevenly distributed ground-based observations limit the understanding of spatio-temporal distributions of PM1 in China. In this study, hourly PM1 concentrations in central and eastern China were retrieved based on a random forest model using hourly aerosol optical depth (AOD) from Himawari-8, meteorological and geographic information as inputs. Here the spatiotemporal autocorrelation of PM1 was also considered in the model. Experimental results indicate that although the performance of the proposed model shows diurnal, seasonal and spatial variations, it is relatively better than others, with a determination coefficient (R-2) of 0.83 calculated based on the 10-fold cross validation method. Geographical map implies that PM1 pollution level in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei is much higher than in other regions, with the mean value of similar to 55 mu g/m(3). Based on the exposure analysis, we found about 75% of the population lives in an environment with PM1 higher than 35 mu g/m(3) in the whole study area. The retrieval dataset in this study is of great significance for further exploring the impact of PM1 on public health. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study investigated PM1 concentrations in central and eastern China using a random forest model, revealing higher levels of PM1 pollution in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. Approximately 75% of the population was found to be living in an environment with PM1 concentrations exceeding 35μg/m³.