Evaluation and Predicting PM10 Concentration Using Multiple Linear Regression and Machine Learning

Particulate matter (PM) that has been artificially generated during the recent of rapid industrialization and urbanization moves and disperses according to weather conditions, and adversely affects the human skin and respiratory systems. The purpose of this study is to predict the PM10 concentration in Seoul using meteorological factors as input dataset for multiple linear regression (MLR), support vector machine (SVM), and random forest (RF) models, and compared and evaluated the performance of the models. First, the PM10 concentration data obtained at 39 air quality monitoring sites (AQMS) in Seoul were divided into training and validation dataset (8:2 ratio). The nine meteorological factors (mean, maximum, and minimum temperature, precipitation, average and maximum wind speed, wind direction, yellow dust, and relative humidity), obtained by the automatic weather system (AWS), were composed to input dataset of models. The coefficients of determination (R-2) between the observed PM10 concentration and that predicted by the MLR, SVM, and RF models was 0.260, 0.772, and 0.793, respectively, and the RF model best predicted the PM10 concentration. Among the AQMS used for model validation, Gwanak-gu and Gangnam-daero AQMS are relatively close to AWS, and the SVM and RF models were highly accurate according to the model validations. The Jongno-gu AQMS is relatively far from the AWS, but since PM10 concentration for the two adjacent AQMS were used for model training, both models presented high accuracy. By contrast, Yongsan-gu AQMS was relatively far from AQMS and AWS, both models performed poorly.