A comparison between geostatistical and machine learning models for spatio-temporal prediction of PM2.5 data

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Mohamed, Zeinab, Gong, Wenlong
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Mohamed, Zeinab
Gong, Wenlong
author_facet Mohamed, Zeinab
Gong, Wenlong
contents Ambient air pollution poses significant health and environmental challenges. Exposure to high concentrations of PM$_{2.5}$ have been linked to increased respiratory and cardiovascular hospital admissions, more emergency department visits and deaths. Traditional air quality monitoring systems such as EPA-certified stations provide limited spatial and temporal data. The advent of low-cost sensors has dramatically improved the granularity of air quality data, enabling real-time, high-resolution monitoring. This study exploits the extensive data from PurpleAir sensors to assess and compare the effectiveness of various statistical and machine learning models in producing accurate hourly PM$_{2.5}$ maps across California. We evaluate traditional geostatistical methods, including kriging and land use regression, against advanced machine learning approaches such as neural networks, random forests, and support vector machines, as well as ensemble model. Our findings enhanced the predictive accuracy of PM2.5 concentration by correcting the bias in PurpleAir data with an ensemble model, which incorporating both spatiotemporal dependencies and machine learning models.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_12051
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A comparison between geostatistical and machine learning models for spatio-temporal prediction of PM2.5 data
Mohamed, Zeinab
Gong, Wenlong
Applications
Machine Learning
Ambient air pollution poses significant health and environmental challenges. Exposure to high concentrations of PM$_{2.5}$ have been linked to increased respiratory and cardiovascular hospital admissions, more emergency department visits and deaths. Traditional air quality monitoring systems such as EPA-certified stations provide limited spatial and temporal data. The advent of low-cost sensors has dramatically improved the granularity of air quality data, enabling real-time, high-resolution monitoring. This study exploits the extensive data from PurpleAir sensors to assess and compare the effectiveness of various statistical and machine learning models in producing accurate hourly PM$_{2.5}$ maps across California. We evaluate traditional geostatistical methods, including kriging and land use regression, against advanced machine learning approaches such as neural networks, random forests, and support vector machines, as well as ensemble model. Our findings enhanced the predictive accuracy of PM2.5 concentration by correcting the bias in PurpleAir data with an ensemble model, which incorporating both spatiotemporal dependencies and machine learning models.
title A comparison between geostatistical and machine learning models for spatio-temporal prediction of PM2.5 data
topic Applications
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.12051