RM-DEMATEL: a new methodology to identify the key factors in P M 2.5

Weather system is a relative complex dynamic system, the factors of the system are mutually influenced P M (2.5) concentration. In this paper, a new method is proposed to quantify the influence on P M (2.5) by other factors in the weather system and identify the most important factors for P M (2.5) with limited resources. The relation map (RM) is used to figure out the direct relation matrix of 14 factors in P M (2.5). The decision making trial and evaluation laboratory(DEMATEL) is applied to calculate the causal relationship and extent to a mutual influence of 14 factors in P M (2.5). According to the ranking results of our proposed method, the most important key factors is sulfur dioxide (SO (2)) and nitrogen oxides (NO (X) ). In addition, the other factors, the ambient maximum temperature (T (max)), concentration of P M (10), and wind direction (W (d i r) ), are important factors for P M (2.5). The proposed method can also be applied to other environment management systems to identify key factors.