Title
Developing an advanced PM2.5 exposure model in Lima, Peru
Date Issued
01 January 2019
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Vu B.N.
Sánchez O.
Bi J.
Xiao Q.
Hansel N.N.
Checkley W.
Steenland K.
Liu Y.
Publisher(s)
MDPI AG
Abstract
It is well recognized that exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) affects health adversely, yet few studies from South America have documented such associations due to the sparsity of PM2.5 measurements. Lima's topography and aging vehicular fleet results in severe air pollution with limited amounts of monitors to effectively quantify PM2.5 levels for epidemiologic studies. We developed an advanced machine learning model to estimate daily PM2.5 concentrations at a 1 km2 spatial resolution in Lima, Peru from 2010 to 2016. We combined aerosol optical depth (AOD), meteorological fields from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), parameters from theWeather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem), and land use variables to fit a random forest model against ground measurements from 16 monitoring stations. Overall cross-validation R2 (and root mean square prediction error, RMSE) for the random forest model was 0.70 (5.97 μg/m3). Mean PM2.5 for ground measurements was 24.7 μg/m3 while mean estimated PM2.5 was 24.9 μg/m3 in the cross-validation dataset. The mean difference between ground and predicted measurements was -0.09 μg/m3 (Std.Dev. = 5.97 μg/m3), with 94.5% of observations falling within 2 standard deviations of the difference indicating good agreement between ground measurements and predicted estimates. Surface downwards solar radiation, temperature, relative humidity, and AOD were the most important predictors, while percent urbanization, albedo, and cloud fraction were the least important predictors. Comparison of monthly mean measurements between ground and predicted PM2.5 shows good precision and accuracy from our model. Furthermore, mean annual maps of PM2.5 show consistent lower concentrations in the coast and higher concentrations in the mountains, resulting from prevailing coastal winds blown from the Pacific Ocean in the west. Our model allows for construction of long-term historical daily PM2.5 measurements at 1 km2 spatial resolution to support future epidemiological studies.
Volume
11
Issue
6
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Salud pública, Salud ambiental
Epidemiología
Subjects
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85063997197
Source
Remote Sensing
ISSN of the container
20724292
Sponsor(s)
Research reported in this publication was supported by the NIH Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) R01ES018845, R01ES018845-S1, National Cancer Institute, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and the NIH under Award Number U01 TW0101 07. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. This research was also support by the HERCULES Center Pilot Project Program. We also express great thanks to Gustavo Gonzales for his support in this project.
Sources of information:
Directorio de Producción Científica
Scopus