WRF modeling of PM2.5 remediation by SALSCS and its clean air flow over Beijing terrain

ConvFormer-KDE: A Long-Term Point-Interval Prediction Framework for PM2.5 Based on Multi-Source Spatial and Temporal Data

Accurate long-term PM2.5 prediction is crucial for environmental management and public health. However, previous studies have mainly focused on short-term air quality point predictions, neglecting the importance of accurately predicting the long-term trends of PM2.5 and studying the uncertainty of PM2.5 concentration changes. The traditional approaches have limitations in capturing nonlinear relationships and complex dynamic patterns in time series, and they often overlook the credibility of prediction results in practical applications. Therefore, there is still much room for improvement in long-term prediction of PM2.5. This study proposes a novel long-term point and interval prediction framework for urban air quality based on multi-source spatial and temporal data, which further quantifies the uncertainty and volatility of the prediction based on the accurate PM2.5 point prediction. In this model, firstly, multi-source datasets from multiple monitoring stations are preprocessed. Subsequently, spatial clustering of stations based on POI data is performed to filter out strongly correlated stations, and feature selection is performed to eliminate redundant features. In this paper, the ConvFormer-KDE model is presented, whereby local patterns and short-term dependencies among multivariate variables are mined through a convolutional neural network (CNN), long-term dependencies among time-series data are extracted using the Transformer model, and a direct multi-output strategy is employed to realize the long-term point prediction of PM2.5 concentration. KDE is utilized to derive prediction intervals for PM2.5 concentration at confidence levels of 85%, 90%, and 95%, respectively, reflecting the uncertainty inherent in long-term trends of PM2.5. The performance of ConvFormer-KDE was compared with a list of advanced models. Experimental results showed that ConvFormer-KDE outperformed baseline models in long-term point- and interval-prediction tasks for PM2.5. The ConvFormer-KDE can provide a valuable early warning basis for future PM2.5 changes from the aspects of point and interval prediction.

Air pollution and climate change as grand challenges to sustainability

There is a cross-disciplinary link between air pollution, climate crisis, and sustainable lifestyle as they are the most complex struggles of the present century. This review takes an in-depth look at this relationship, considering carbon dioxide emissions primarily from the burning of fossil fuels as the main contributor to global warming and focusing on primary SLCPs such as methane and ground-level ozone. Such pollutants severely alter the climate through the generation of greenhouse gases. The discussion is extensive and includes best practices from conventional pollution control technologies to hi-tech alternatives, including electric vehicles, the use of renewables, and green decentralized solutions. It also addresses policy matters, such as imposing stricter emissions standards, setting stronger environmental regulations, and rethinking some economic measures. Besides that, new developments such as congestion charges, air ionization, solar-assisted cleaning systems, and photocatalytic materials are among the products discussed. These strategies differ in relation to the local conditions and therefore exhibit a varying effectiveness level, but they remain evident as a tool of pollution deterrence. This stresses the importance of holistic and inclusive approach in terms of engineering, policies, stakeholders, and ecological spheres to tackle.

A novel PM2.5 concentrations probability density prediction model combines the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator with quantile regression

PM2.5 has a significant negative impact on human health and atmospheric quality, and accurate prediction of its concentration is necessary. When using common point prediction models for PM2.5 concentration prediction, the influence of various uncertainties on PM2.5 concentrations makes the prediction results suffer from poor accuracy. To address this issue, this paper proposes the quantile regression neural network (QRNN) model based on the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO), combined with kernel density estimation (KDE) for probabilistic density prediction of PM2.5 concentrations. The model uses LASSO regression to select the influential factors, and then the quartiles of daily PM2.5 concentrations calculated by the QRNN model are imported into the KDE model to obtain the probability density predictions of PM2.5 concentrations. In the paper, empirical analyses are carried out with the cities of Beijing and Jinan in China as well as six other datasets, and the prediction performance of the model is assessed by using evaluation criteria in both point prediction and interval prediction. The simulation reveals that the predictive performance of the LASSO-QRNN-KDE model is well, and the model is not only effective in filtering high-dimensional data, but also has a higher accuracy compared to common research models. In addition, the model is able to describe the uncertainty of PM2.5 concentration fluctuations and carry more information on the variation of PM2.5 concentrations, which can provide a novel and excellent PM2.5 concentration prediction tool for relevant policy makers.

A new hybrid optimization prediction model for PM2.5 concentration considering other air pollutants and meteorological conditions

With the development of economy, the problem of air pollution has become increasingly serious. As an important detection index of air pollutants, how to accurately and effectively predict PM2.5 concentration is a significant issue related to human health and development. In this paper, a new hybrid optimization prediction model for PM2.5 concentration based on complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition with adaptive noise (CEEMDAN), variational mode decomposition optimized by COOT optimization algorithm (COOT-VMD), and least square support vector machine (LSSVM) optimized by the JAYA optimization algorithm (JAYA-LSSVM), named CEEMDAN-COOT-VMD-JAYA-LSSVM, is proposed. To avoid artificially setting the limits of the decomposition layer and penalty factor of VMD parameters, an improved VMD by COOT optimization algorithm, named COOT-VMD, is proposed. First, the original sequence of PM2.5 concentration is decomposed by CEEMDAN. Second, the high complexity component with low prediction accuracy after once decomposition is decomposed by COOT-VMD. Third, a prediction model of optimized LSSVM by JAYA optimization algorithm, named JAYA-LSSVM, is proposed. JAYA-LSSVM is used to predict all components considering other air pollutants such as PM10, SO2, NO2, CO, and O3 and meteorological conditions such as wind speed, temperature, sunlight, relative humidity and average air pressure. Finally, all predicted values are reconstructed to obtain the final prediction results. PM2.5 concentration from April 1, 2016 to March 29, 2021 in Xi'an and Shenyang is used as the experimental data to verify the proposed model. The results of experiment in Xi'an show that the RMSE, MAE, MAPE and R² are 2.843, 1.8344, 2.94%, and 0.99525 respectively. The results of experiment in Shenyang show that the RMSE, MAE, MAPE and R² are 2.2714, 1.673, 3.13%, and 0.99573 respectively. Compared to other single and hybrid models, the proposed model can accurately predict PM2.5 concentration. Diebold Mariano test results display the proposed prediction model is superior to all comparison models at 99% confidence level.

Integrated system for population dose calculation and decision making on protection measures in case of an accident with air emissions in a nuclear power plant

The accidents in Chernobyl and Fukushima remind us that nuclear power plants should continuously invest resources in improving safety and in risk management. This paper presents the methodology for developing a measuring and modelling system with a high degree of automation, which enables predicting the effects of the spreading of radionuclides from the nuclear power plant to the atmosphere. The end result is the calculated population doses in the event of an accidental release, which is an essential piece of information needed by first responders to take proper action. The key challenge addressed by this methodology is how to build a system so that its operation is maximally automated, ongoing and in real time. Moreover, in a way that "fresh", normalized results for the hypothetically most probable types of emissions are always available to operators. The principle that normalized, fresh results are always automatically available to operators is the only real assurance that they will almost surely be available in the event of an accident and panic. This way, we can avoid performing complex model calculations at the operator's request when the accident is already taking place. The methodology divides the building of the system into key modules, which are substantiated and described. The theoretical section is followed by a description of implementation on the example of the Measuring and Modelling System at the Krško Nuclear Power Plant (in Slovenia). The system has been tested in regular nuclear emergency exercises and rated excellent by IAEA inspections; it has been operating automatically, continuously and in real time for many years. The availability of automatic results is counted for the last two years. Measurements and diagnostic modelling results were available for more than 96% and forecasts were available in more than 91% of all half-hour intervals.