Exploration of transfer learning techniques for the prediction of PM10.
Sci. Rep. 15:2919 (2025)
Modelling of pollutants provides valuable insights into air quality dynamics, aiding exposure assessment where direct measurements are not viable. Machine learning (ML) models can be employed to explore such dynamics, including the prediction of air pollution concentrations, yet demanding extensive training data. To address this, techniques like transfer learning (TL) leverage knowledge from a model trained on a rich dataset to enhance one trained on a sparse dataset, provided there are similarities in data distribution. In our experimental setup, we utilize meteorological and pollutant data from multiple governmental air quality measurement stations in Graz, Austria, supplemented by data from one station in Zagreb, Croatia to simulate data scarcity. Common ML models such as Random Forests, Multilayer Perceptrons, Long-Short-Term Memory, and Convolutional Neural Networks are explored to predict particulate matter in both cities. Our detailed analysis of PM10 suggests that similarities between the cities and the meteorological features exist and can be further exploited. Hence, TL appears to offer a viable approach to enhance PM10 predictions for the Zagreb station, despite the challenges posed by data scarcity. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of different TL techniques to improve particulate matter prediction on transferring a ML model trained from all stations of Graz and transferred to Zagreb. Through our investigation, we discovered that selectively choosing time spans based on seasonal patterns not only aids in reducing the amount of data needed for successful TL but also significantly improves prediction performance. Specifically, training a Random Forest model using data from all measurement stations in Graz and transferring it with only 20% of the labelled data from Zagreb resulted in a 22% enhancement compared to directly testing the trained model on Zagreb.
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Publication type
Article: Journal article
Document type
Scientific Article
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Keywords
Pollution
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Language
english
Publication Year
2025
Prepublished in Year
0
HGF-reported in Year
2025
ISSN (print) / ISBN
2045-2322
e-ISSN
2045-2322
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Volume: 15,
Issue: 1,
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Article Number: 2919
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Nature Publishing Group
Publishing Place
London
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Peer reviewed
Institute(s)
Institute of Epidemiology (EPI)
POF-Topic(s)
30202 - Environmental Health
Research field(s)
Genetics and Epidemiology
PSP Element(s)
G-504000-004
Grants
European Commission
EU-Commission Grant
Austrian COMET Program-Competence Centers for Excellent Technologies-under the auspices of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology (BMK)
Austrian Federal Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs (BMDW)
State of Styria
Copyright
Erfassungsdatum
2025-03-25