Estimation of Ground PM2.5 Concentrations in Pakistan Using Convolutional Neural Network and Multi-Pollutant Satellite Images

Abstract

During the last few decades, worsening air quality has been diagnosed in many cities around the world. The accurately prediction of air pollutants, particularly, particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5) is extremely important for environmental management. A Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) P-CNN model is presented in this paper, which uses seven different pollutant satellite images, such as Aerosol index (AER AI), Methane (CH4), Carbon monoxide (CO), Formaldehyde (HCHO), Nitrogen dioxide (NO2), Ozone (O3) and Sulfur dioxide (SO2), as auxiliary variables to estimate daily average PM2.5 concentrations. This study estimates daily average of PM2.5 concentrations in various cities of Pakistan (Islamabad, Lahore, Peshawar and Karachi) by using satellite images. The dataset contains a total of 2562 images from May-2019 to April-2020. We compare and analyze AlexNet, VGG16, ResNet50 and P-CNN model on every dataset. The accuracy of machine learning models was checked with Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE). The results show that P-CNN is more accurate than other approaches in estimating PM2.5 concentrations from satellite images. This study presents robust model using satellite images, useful for estimating PM2.5 concentrations.