1. Estimating PM2.5 Concentrations in Contiguous Eastern Coastal Zone of China Using MODIS AOD and a Two-Stage Random Forest Model.
- Author
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LIJUAN YANG, HANQIU XU, and SHAODE YU
- Subjects
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RANDOM forest algorithms , *COASTS , *SPATIAL resolution , *MISSING data (Statistics) , *ALGORITHMS - Abstract
The coarseModerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aerosol optical depth (AOD) product (spatial resolution: 3 km) retrieved by the dark-target algorithm always generates the missing values when being adopted to estimate the ground-level PM2.5 concentrations. In this study, we developed a two-stage random forest using MODIS 3-km AOD to obtain the PM2.5 concentrations with full coverage in a contiguous coastal developed region, i.e., Yangtze River delta--Fujian--Pearl River delta (YRD--FJ--PRD) region of China. A first-stage random forest--integrated six meteorological fields was employed to predict the missing values of AOD product, and the combined AOD (i.e., random forest--derived AOD and MODIS 3-km AOD) incorporated with other ancillary variables were developed for predicting PM2.5 concentrations within a second-stage random forest model. The results showed that the first-stage random forest could explain 94% of the AOD variability over YRD--FJ--PRD region, and we achieved a site-based cross validation (CV) R² of 0.87 and a time-based CV R² of 0.85. The full-coverage PM2.5 concentrations illustrated a spatial pattern with annual-mean PM2.5 of 46, 40, and 35 µg m-3 in YRD, PRD, and FJ, respectively, sharing the same trend with previous studies. Our results indicated that the proposed two-stage random forest model could be effectively used for PM2.5 estimation in different areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2021
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