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Calculation of pseudo PM2.5 annual mean concentrations in Europe based on annual mean PM10 concentrations and other supplementary data
ETC/ACC Technical Paper 2010/9

Released: 2011/01/11: See the report

Abstract
ETC/ACC has developed methods to spatially assess a number of air pollutants for all of Europe. Currently maps are produced for PM10 but not PM2.5 due to a lack of monitoring data for PM2.5, reported in AirBase. This makes spatial assessment of PM2.5 very uncertain and therefore PM2.5 maps are currently not operationally produced. To try to improve this situation two approaches for producing ‘pseudo’ PM2.5 measurements are investigated for European wide mapping of PM2.5. These pseudo measurements are based on the measured PM10 concentrations but with addition of supplementary geographical, population and meteorological data.

The two approaches are ‘Empirical Ensemble-based Virtual Sensing’ (EEVS), which is based on Artificial Neural Networks, and multiple linear regression (MLR), a standard variational technique. They give similar results, with the EEVS approach showing slightly lower RMSE than MLR. For all other metrics assessed there was no significant difference. Neither approach was found to fulfil the monitoring quality objectives of the air quality directive 2008/50/EC, but both would fulfil the requirements in the directive for modelling and indicative measurements.

From a practical application point of view the EEVS approach is opaque (no information is available on either the Neural Network models used or the parameters applied after training) and the results cannot be reproduced or understood by third parties. Unless this situation changes in the future, we recommend MLR as a suitable approach for future PM2.5 mapping for Europe.

Prepared by: Bruce Denby¹, Giulio Gola², Frank de Leeuw³, Peter de Smet³, Jan Horálek^{4
1Norwegian Institute of Air Research (NILU), Kjeller, Norway; 2Institute for Energy Technology (IFE), Halden, Norway; 3Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL), Bilthoven, The Netherlands; 4Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (CHMI), Prague, Czech Republic}

Published by: ETC/ACC, January 2011, 20 pp.