Science of the Total Environment 735 (2020) 139454

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Science of the Total Environment

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scitotenv

Air quality forecasting using artificial neural networks with real time
dynamic error correction in highly polluted regions
Shivang Agarwal a, Sumit Sharma a,⁎, Suresh R. a, Md H. Rahman a, Stijn Vranckx b, Bino Maiheu b, Lisa Blyth b,
Stijn Janssen b, Prashant Gargava c, V.K. Shukla c, Sakshi Batra c
a
TERI, The Energy and Resources Institute, IHC Complex, Lodi Road, New Delhi 110003, India
b
VITO, Flemish Institute for Technological Research, Boeretang 200, 2400 Mol, Belgium
c
CPCB, Central Pollution Control Board, East Arjun Nagar, Delhi 110032, India

H I G H L I G H T S G R A P H I C A L A B S T R A C T

• ANN model developed to forecast pol-

lutants in highly polluted region for
next 4 days.
• Significant improvement in model per-
formance trained with Real Time Cor-
rection (RTC).
• 80% percentile values satisfactorily pre-
dicted; extreme high values under-
predicted
• Ozone predictions are better than for
PM.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Air pollution is an important issue, especially in megacities across the world. There are emission sources within and
Received 1 April 2020 also in the regions around these cities, which cause fluctuations in air quality based on prevailing meteorological
Received in revised form 11 May 2020 conditions. Short term air quality forecasting is used not to just possibly mitigate forthcoming high air pollution ep-
Accepted 13 May 2020
isodes, but also to plan for reduced exposures of residents. In this study, a model using Artificial Neural Networks
Available online 15 May 2020
(ANN) has been developed to forecast pollutant concentration of PM10, PM2.5, NO2, and O3 for the current day
Editor: Pavlos Kassomenos and subsequent 4 days in a highly polluted region (32 different locations in Delhi). The model has been trained
using meteorological parameters and hourly pollution concentration data for the year 2018 and then used for gen-
Keywords: erating air quality forecasts in real-time. It has also been equipped with Real Time Correction (RTC), to improve the
Artificial neural network quality of the forecasts by dynamically adjusting the forecasts based on the model performance during the past few
Air pollution forecasting days. The model without RTC performs decently, but with RTC the errors are further reduced in forecasted values.
Delhi pollution The utility of the model has been demonstrated in real-time and model validations were performed for the whole
Real-time correction year of 2018 and also independently for 2019. The model shows very good performance for all the pollutants on sev-
Pollution prediction
eral evaluation metrics. Coefficient of correlations for various pollutants varies from 0.79–0.88 to 0.49–0.68 between
the Day0 to Day4 forecasts. Lowest deterioration of performance was observed for ozone over the four days of fore-
casts. Use of RTC further improves the model performance for all pollutants.
© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: shivang.agarwal@teri.res.in (S. Agarwal), sumits@teri.res.in (S. Sharma).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139454
0048-9697/© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
2 S. Agarwal et al. / Science of the Total Environment 735 (2020) 139454
1. Introduction
Air pollution is a major concern in many developing economies. Dif-
ferent pollutants show variety of impacts over humans and their sur-
roundings. PM is known to have detrimental impacts over human
health (Burnett et al., 2014; WHO, 2014); ozone (formed as a secondary
pollutant through reactions of NOx and VOCs) is known to retard agri-
cultural productivity significantly (Wilkinson et al. (2011), Sharma
et al. (2016)); and in addition pollutants like SO2 also impacts buildings
(Mallik et al., 2019). Population growth, rapid increase in urbanization,
vehicular ownership, energy demand, and industrialisation are the
major drivers of rising air pollution levels in urban areas. Following
these patterns, Indian cities have also reached alarming levels of pollu-
tion (WHO, 2018), which has led to significant number of mortalities in
India (HEI, 2019). Impacts are caused due to both acute and chronic ex-
posures to air pollutant concentrations (WHO, 2018), and hence, know-
ing the short-term pollution forecasts could be very beneficial to reduce
acute exposures to pollutant concentrations.
Air quality forecasts can play a vital role in air quality management
by providing timely health alerts, supplementing existing emission con-
trol programs, operational planning (e.g. aviation) and emergency in-
tervention to counter high pollution episodes (NOAA, 2001). Short
term air quality forecasting is carried out using several techniques to
predict pollutant concentrations for the next few days. Forecasting
models can be as simple as correlating recurring weather patterns
with pollution levels, but can also be complex using chemical transport
models using emissions and meteorological inputs. Air quality forecasts
can also be derived through statistical techniques such as regression,
and artificial neural networks (ANN). There are various studies across
the world which demonstrates the use of ANN for air quality forecasting
(Hooyberghs et al., 2005; Alimissis et al., 2018), however, there are lim-
ited studies available in Indian context (Singh et al., 2012; Prakash et al.,
2011; Mahapatra, 2010; Jain and Khare, 2010) where air pollutant levels
are found to be extremely high and also with significant daily and sea-
sonal fluctuations. There are specific efforts in India like the SAFAR (Sys-
tem of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research) which is one
of those air quality forecasting programs started by Indian Ministry of
Earth Sciences. However, reach of forecasting programs remained lim-
ited due its cost-intensiveness. With N474 urban centres (MoHUA,
2017), and widespread polluted conditions, there is a need for a low re-
source intensive forecasting model for prediction of air quality in India.
Most of the Indian cities are highly polluted cities in terms of particulate
matter concentrations and are influenced by multiple emission sources,
and specific models are required to be tested which can take into ac-
count varying conditions. In this paper, we developed a forecasting
model based on ANN with real time correction (RTC) technique and
tested it in an urban centre for prediction of ambient concentrations of
different pollutants in highly polluted environment. The real time cor-
rection algorithm is a feedback model which compares the forecasted
values with the observation data and adjusts the forecasts accounting
for errors. Studies on assessment of efficacy of ANN-RTC model for
Table 1
Air quality forecasting studies in India using ANN.
Study Year of dataset used
Krishan et al. (2019) 2008–2010
Gogikar et al. (2018) 2009–2013
Sekar et al. (2016) 2008–2010
Mishra and Goyal (2015) 2013
Singh et al. (2012) 2005–2009
Prakash et al. (2011) 2006–2010
Mahapatra (2010) 1999–2004
Jain and Khare (2010) 1997–1998
Nagendra and Khare (2006) 1997–1998
Nagendra and Khare (2005) 1997–1999
Chelani et al. (2002) 1997–1998
forecasting of air pollutant in highly polluted environment are ex-
tremely limited and this paper presents these findings which could be
extremely useful. There are limited studies for assessing ANN's applica-
bility in different area categories (land uses) within a megacity. This
study comprehensively covers 32 different locations in a megacity,
which represent different land uses and varying air pollution levels
within the city. Along with wider coverage of different area categories,
this study also covers a wide spectrum of pollutants for assessing the ef-
ficacy of the forecasting model. Unlike many existing studies, this study
deals with a variety of pollutants, including particulates (of different
size fractions PM10, PM2.5), the primary gaseous pollutant NO2, and a
secondary gaseous pollutant ozone, and assess the performance of
ANN technique on them. The model has been tested and analysed on
both basic ANN model and also with additional techniques of RTC and
resampling to further improve the performance. Finally, the ANN
model described in this paper has a clear operational objective. The fore-
cast model is configured and setup in close collaboration with the Cen-
tral Pollution Control Board and is meant to be used for an operational
context of forecasting air pollution episode in the Delhi area. The
model is not resource intensive and has been built using existing easily
available datasets of air quality and meteorology. The model has high
reliability and replicability in regions of high pollution intensity. This
paper provides useful insights in developing and testing an ANN based
air quality forecasting tool which can help in air quality management
and also in reducing exposures to residents of cities dealing with high
air pollution in India and elsewhere. The ANN based models developed
in this study can be used as an early warning system for the regulatory
agencies to take proactive control measures if the model shows a likeli-
hood of a high air pollution episode. The widespread forecasts at 32 lo-
cations in the city can help in taking specific measures at the hotspot
locations. The model could be extremely useful for the general public
to reorient their plans (outdoor exposures) based on forecasted ambi-
ent air quality values, and hence, allows people to make daily choices
of visiting a place or not, keeping in mind the pollution level of subse-
quent day. The model can also be possibly correlated with information
on visibility, and can be useful for planning of flights and train schedules
in advance. Finally, display of forecasted values will help raising aware-
ness levels among the public at large, which can lead to individual con-
tributions to further control and reduce emissions and its related air
pollution.
2. Material and methods
2.1. ANN
Neural networks are based on adaptive learning and pattern recog-
nition techniques, which rely on historical datasets to identify atmo-
spheric parameters which could influence air pollutant concentrations.
They are known to mimic the way the human brain recognizes recur-
ring patterns. ANN systems are computing systems that are inspired
by, but not necessarily identical to the biological neural network. In a
Location Forecasted pollutant
Delhi (ITO) O3, PM2.5, NOx, CO
Rourkela (Odisha) PM2.5, PM10
Delhi (ITO) PM2.5, CO
Agra (U.P.) NO2
Lucknow (U.P.) RSPM, SO2, NO2
Delhi CO, NO2, NO, O3, SO2, PM2.5
Delhi O3
Delhi CO
Delhi NO2
Delhi CO
Delhi SO2
 S. Agarwal et al. / Science of the Total Environment 735 (2020) 139454 3

Fig. 1. Trends of annual average PM10 and NOx concentrations (μg/m3) in Delhi. Source: NAMP CPCB data averaged for all manual stations in the city. Dotted line is annual average national
ambient air standards for PM10 (red) and NOx (blue).

regression problem, a set of known input variables are used to produce with the prediction accuracy (index of agreement) varying from 89%
an output variable that is a good forecast of target variable (e.g. particu- to 93%.
late matter of size 10 μm PM10, Day+1) with minimal errors between ANN has been found to be outperforming the linear regression tech-
forecasted and actual values. The input variables, e.g. in the case of air nique. Elangasinghe et al. (2014) forecasted NO2 concentration at a
quality forecasts, are previous day pollutant concentration and fore- major highway near Auckland, New Zealand using ANN and found it
casted meteorological conditions, are multi-dimensional and the com- to be outperforming the linear regression technique. Alimissis et al.
plex relationships with the target parameter is non-linear. Therefore, (2018) also confirmed that ANN performs considerably better than
the parametric regression techniques won't be able to perform effec- multi-linear regression model, when forecasting NO2, NO, O3, CO, and
tively, and hence the use of neural network is more appropriate for SO2. While ANN based model perform better than linear regression
these types of applications (Hooyberghs et al., 2005). models, they also have been found with some limitations. Reich et al.
ANN has to be designed for a specific location e.g. for each air quality (1999), explained the limitations of ANN model, and found that the
monitoring site to fit a function between chosen inputs and target model performs weakly when the concentration reaches extremely
values. There are several studies that have proved ANN to be an effective low or high values.
method for prediction of pollutant concentrations (Perez and Reyes, While there are studies which have used ANN technique for fore-
2002; Lu et al., 2003; Kukkonen et al., 2003; Nagendra and Khare, casting, the range of these studies in terms of area and pollutants was
2005; Ordieres et al., 2005). Such system "learns" to perform tasks by limited. In addition, developing countries like India have significantly
considering examples or previous data sets and hence, large enough his- expanded its real time continuous air quality monitoring network,
torical dataset would be required for model training purpose. A part of which can now be used for more effective forecasting of various pollut-
the dataset is used to train the neural network and the rest of the dataset ants. In addition, there are advanced meteorological forecasts, satellite-
is used to validate the accuracy of the ANN based model.
Hooyberghs et al. (2005) used ANN to forecast PM10 in Belgium. The
values were forecasted satisfactorily and were found to be more depen-
dent on varying meteorological factors than more or less stagnant an-
thropogenic emission sources in the region. However, in developing
countries like India, the scenario is different and along with variations
in meteorological variables, emissions also vary considerably across sea-
sons, and also on daily basis (e.g. waste burning fires). There are some
studies carried out in India, which have used ANN for forecasting of var-
ious pollutant concentrations (Table 1).
Krishan et al. (2019) used the ANN based forecasting model for a
specific location (ITO) in Delhi and finds the coefficient of correlation
to be 0.97 for PM2.5 and lowest (0.86) for O3 predictions. The historical
dataset used was for 3 years and the long short term memory (LSTM)
algorithm was used to develop the forecasting model. Sekar et al.
(2016) tested three different algorithms for forecasting ambient PM2.5
and CO concentrations. The ‘r’ value varied from 0.47 to 0.78 for various
models of ANN for PM2.5 and 0.33 to 0.58 for CO. Chelani et al. (2002)
shows a correlation coefficient for SO2 as 0.68, 0.72, 0.63 and root
mean square error (RMSE) was 0.59, 0.43, and 0.56 for industrial, com-
mercial and residential areas, respectively. Nagendra and Khare (2006)
used ANN model to forecast NO2, and the index of agreement ‘d’ was
found to be 0.59–0.76. Mishra and Goyal (2015) shows the correlation
coefficient and Normalized Mean Square Error (NMSE) for different sea-
sons between 0.67–0.83 and 0.051–0.228, respectively. Jain and Khare
(2010) in their study found satisfactory performance of the model, Fig. 2. Real time ambient air quality monitoring stations in Delhi.
4 S. Agarwal et al. / Science of the Total Environment 735 (2020) 139454

Fig. 3. Methodology followed for model development. Global Meteorological Dataset and VIIRS Satellite data set abbreviations can be found in Table 2.

Fig. 4. Coefficient of correlation between Day+1 pollutant concentration and different meteorological variables observed in 2018.
 S. Agarwal et al. / Science of the Total Environment 735 (2020) 139454 5

Table 2 come up with a forecasting model for predicting air pollutant

Meteorological parameter used in formulation of ANN based forecasting model. concentrations.
Parameter Description

CAVG_DAY0 Measured concentration average in the morning of

2.2. Study area
day0, assuming the forecast will be started at 9 h
CAVG_DAYM1 Measured concentration average for day-1 Delhi, being the capital city and one of the most polluted (Cheng
BLH_DAYN Average dayN boundary layer height et al., 2016) and monitored cities in India has been considered for devel-
T2M_DAYN Average dayN 2 m air temperature
opment of the forecasting model. The major drivers of air pollution in
RH_DAYN Average dayN 2 m relative humidity
IS975_DAYN Average dayN temperature difference between 975 mb Delhi are rapid growth in population and economy, presence of variety
and 1000 mb model layer [K] of emissions sources, and inadequate emission controls in the city and
IS950_DAYN Average dayN temperature difference between 950 mb its surroundings (national capital region). Delhi and its surroundings
and 1000 mb model layer [K] have shown tremendous increase in traffic volumes, and industrial ac-
IS925_DAYN Average dayN temperature difference between 925 mb
and 1000 mb model layer [K]
tivities. In addition, there is biomass burning in rural kitchens and agri-
U10_DAYNM1_DAYN Average zonal (west-east) wind speed between cultural fields in the surrounding states, construction activities in the
dayN-1 at 12:00 and dayN at12:00 cities, power plants and diesel generators which add to the pollution
V10_DAYNM1_DAYN Average meridional (south-north) wind speed load in the region. This has resulted in the deterioration of air quality
between dayN-1 at 12:00 and dayN at12:00
in the city. The data out of the national ambient air monitoring program
TP_DAYN Average dayN total precipitation
FIRE_DAYNM3_DAYNM1 Average number of fire events during three-day period (NAMP) showed that PM10 levels in Delhi are about 4 times the pre-
(day – 3, day −2, day −1). scribed annual average standards. Fig. 1 shows that over the years an-
nual average PM10 concentration has increased substantially and has
been well above the nationally prescribed standards (PM10: 60 μg/m3)
for last 20 years. Not just PM10, but annual average NOx concentrations
based fire datasets, which can be useful in improving the efficacy of the have also shown a gradual increase over the years. Sharma and Khare
models. This study takes into account a wide network of monitoring sta- (2017) have also shown significant violations of ozone concentrations
tion in an urban area along with the latest datasets and techniques to at certain locations in Delhi during certain time of the year.

Fig. 5. Model performance (averaged for all four pollutants) over different forecast horizon in different model settings.
6 S. Agarwal et al. / Science of the Total Environment 735 (2020) 139454
WHO (2018) shows that the exposure of PM10 is alarmingly high in
Delhi as compared to other mega-cities in the world. Delhi being a land
locked territory has no sea-breeze factor and other similar meteorolog-
ical conditions that can help it in lowering down the levels of air pollut-
ants. It is in summers due to increased wind-speeds and in monsoons
with rains the pollution levels go relatively down, while it peaks in win-
ters. Winters are marked with cold conditions, low winds and lower
boundary layer heights, which leads to higher concentration of pollut-
ants in Delhi (Srivastava et al., 2005; Ali et al., 2012). In addition to the
year round sources, there are some sources which emerge in specific
seasons. Delhi, due to its proximity to Thar Desert, dust storm from
Thar Desert leads to sudden severe spike in particulate matter levels
in Delhi especially during summer months (Sharma et al., 2018). During
the months of April–May and October–November, there is considerable
burning of agricultural residues in the neighbouring farm states of Delhi
(mainly Punjab, UP and Haryana), which add to pollution levels in the
city. Sawlani et al. (2019) summarises that due to shallow planetary
boundary layer, weak northerly winds, low temperature and high rela-
tive humidity, the smog accumulates in landlocked territory Delhi. In
conclusions, both emission sources within and outside Delhi, along
with meteorological conditions plays a very important role in defining
air pollutant concentrations in the city and a forecasting model needs
to take into account these factors.
Ambient air quality monitoring in Delhi is conducted under NAMP
through various organizations which includes Central Pollution Control
Board (CPCB), Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC), NEERI, MoES
(SAFAR), IMD, etc. Among all the monitoring stations, manual air pollu-
tion monitoring is carried out at 10 stations in Delhi. In addition, cur-
rently there are 38 continuous air quality monitoring stations in Delhi,
out of which 24 stations are operated by DPCC, 7 stations each operated
by IMD and CPCB. Additionally, under System of Air Quality and
Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR) of Indian Institute of Tropi-
cal Meteorology (IITM), Pune, monitoring is conducted at 8 monitoring
Fig. 6. Comparison of RRMSE, NMB and R2 for a) PM10, b) PM2.5, c) NO2, and d) O3 for the all four days forecast horizon (RTC – No RS).
stations in Delhi on real time basis. The location of ambient air quality
monitoring stations operated by different agencies in Delhi is shown
in Fig. 2. In this study, we have used the real-time datasets of 32 auto-
matic monitoring stations in Delhi, for pollutants, PM10, PM2.5, NOx
and O3 based on adequate data availability. The selected monitoring sta-
tions have at-least 80% hourly datasets within a year.
2.3. Methodology
A forecasting model is developed which can predict pollutant con-
centration (PM10, PM2.5, NO2, O3) for the current day and the next
4 days for the 32 locations, where air quality monitoring is being carried
out in Delhi. This model is developed using the ANN approach as de-
scribed in Hooyberghs et al. (2005) based on selected input variables.
ANN approach based models are configured to run with all data up to
the past hour, and used to make prediction in the morning at
9:00 AM, taking into account monitor data from the first 9 h of the cur-
rent day as well. The model has been developed using the past datasets
of pollutant concentration (from CPCB) and global meteorology data
(NCEP FNL (National Centre for Environmental Prediction Final)). The
model is trained using the data for the year 2018 and then first validated
for the same period of 12 months (2018) and then fully validated for all
the months of 2019.
Broad methodology adopted in this study is shown in Fig. 3. Firstly,
appropriate input variables have been selected based on their possible
relationship with the pollutant concentrations. For example, meteoro-
logical parameters like wind speed; wind direction, precipitation, rela-
tive humidity, temperature etc. were found to play an important role
in defining concentrations of pollutants at a particular location. In addi-
tion, pollutants are also dispersed vertically in the atmosphere. Thus,
the concentration of pollutants at the ground (target value in this
case) is also dependent on the stability of the atmosphere and in turn
on the planetary boundary layer height. All these parameters are tested
 S. Agarwal et al. / Science of the Total Environment 735 (2020) 139454 7

in case of Delhi for prediction of pollutant concentrations. Past data of
pollutant concentrations is correlated with these meteorological param-
eters and the parameters which showed some correlations are selected
to develop ANN based forecasting model of air quality at specific sta-
tions in Delhi.
2.3.1. Neural network configuration
Temporal variation of PM and other pollutants for a particular region
are determined by complex interplay of many parameters. The primary
objective is to develop a forecasting model for daily average PM and
other pollutants at 0900 h of day 0. The model has been developed to
predict the ground level values of pollutants like bPMNday N,bO3Nday N
and bNO2Nday N for days N = 0,1,2,3,4, for different monitoring sites in
Delhi. The forecasting model is setup based on the fact that forecasted
pollutant concentrations will depend significantly on previous day's
concentrations and forecasted meteorology for the next few days.
Other than meteorological variables, the number of fire events has
also been considered for selection of variables for developing the ANN
model. The 6-hourly meteorological datasets used for training of the
ANN was taken from NCEP FNL (National Centre for Environmental Pre-
diction Final). Hourly data for air quality parameters has been taken
from CPCB (https://app.cpcbccr.com/ccr/#/caaqm-dashboard-all/
caaqm-landing). The model was trained using the data of 2018 and
then validated for both 2018 and 2019 using forecasted meteorological
values. Daily forecasted values of the meteorological parameters are col-
lected from global simulation products NCEP GFS (Global Forecasts Sys-
tem) which is at a spatial resolution of 0.25 degree by 0.25 degree, - a
coarse resolution product and does not specifically capture micro-

Fig. 7. Station-wise performance of the model for the year 2018 using R2, RRMSE and NMB values.
8 S. Agarwal et al. / Science of the Total Environment 735 (2020) 139454
meteorology of the small areas around the 32 stations in Delhi. Local
meteorology can slightly differ but the broad meteorological trends
are fairly uniform over the city. This is evident from the fact that corre-
lation between the local pollution levels and regional meteorology is
still high. The model shows very good performance at most places
depicting satisfactory use of coarse meteorological information. Though,
a fine resolution meteorology dataset can further improve the forecast-
ing results to some extent and may also help in improving prediction of
pollutant concentrations caused by interaction of local source emissions
with micro-meteorological factors. These forecasts for meteorological
variables are used to generate forecasted values of different pollutants
using the neural network based model shown below.
Pollutant (day 1) = f (input parameters like Pollutant concentra-
tions (Day (−1, 0), Forecasted met parameters (Boundary layer, wind
speed, direction, temperature, day of week)) day 1.
Correlation analysis has been performed to understand the relation-
ships of different independent input variables with pollutant concentra-
tions. Most pollutants show some degree of correlation with various
variables used, and hence all variables have been used for forecasting
of the four pollutants.
The forecasted values are first validated against the observations.
Performance metrics like coefficient of correlation, mean bias, relative
root mean square error are used to assess the performance of the fore-
casting model. The model performance was adjudged for all the stations
and also for different parameters. The performance was also assessed
for a time horizon of Day0 to Day4. The model performance was further
optimized using different combinations of real time corrections (RTC)
and resampling (RS) techniques.
RTC: Based on the difference between the forecasted values and the
observations during the past few days, a correction can be applied to the
forecasted values. This is called real-time-corrections (or RTC). During
the optimization of a neural network using RTC, the number of days
on which to base the corrections is optimized using the historical data
for each station individually. The number of days varies between 0 (no
RTC) and 20 days of observations prior to the forecast day. The
Fig. 8. Residual behaviour of model with observed concentration and meteorological parameters.
advantage of adding RTC is that it enables to correct for the bias in the
forecasted values of the past days. The disadvantage might be that the
forecast responds slower to a change in conditions.
Resampling: It is used to ensure whether a dataset has sufficient ob-
servations with increased concentrations or not. Instead of using raw
dataset, the dataset can be resampled for training and optimization so
that it can be better trained for occasions with improved concentrations,
so that it can predict the episodes of high pollution with increased
accuracy.
Considering the two techniques of RTC and RS, the following four
scenarios have been tested for optimisation of the forecasting model.
□ No RTC – No RS (0-0), raw ANN
□ No RTC – RS (0-1)
□ RTC – No RS (1-0)
□ RTC – RS (1-1)
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Correlation analysis to select parameters for the ANN based model
Correlation analysis was carried out for various parameters with pol-
lutant concentrations for the year 2018. The exercise was carried out for
all the stations. Fig. 4 shows the correlation plots for all the pollutants
for – day+1 forecast for average of all stations (Delhi) with different
meteorological parameters. Most pollutant concentrations follow log-
normal distributions and hence we considered the logarithmic PM10
values to assess correlation with different meteorological parameters
and fire events.
Fig. 4 shows that meteorology plays a great role in defining pollutant
concentrations. It is evident that concentration of bday0N and bdaym1N
are strongly correlated with the DAYN concentrations of various pollut-
ants. In case of Boundary Layer Height (BLH) a feeble negative correla-
tion has been observed for all pollutants except ozone. Decreased BLH
increases pollutant concentrations, however in case of ozone due to its
 S. Agarwal et al. / Science of the Total Environment 735 (2020) 139454 9

titration chemistry with nitric oxide (NO), the concentrations de-
crease. A strong inverse correlation is found with the total precipita-
tion, which was expected as precipitation downwashes the
pollutants especially, particulate matter. Inverse correlation was
also found for relative humidity. Temperatures were also shown to
inversely impact the pollutant concentrations except for ozone,
which increases with enhanced solar radiations and temperatures.
Poor correlation with number of fire events was observed possibly
because of the limited timeframe of agricultural burning events
across the year. Based on the correlation analysis, the variables se-
lected input vectors which have been used for development of the
forecasting model are given in Table 2.

Fig. 9. Time series plot of year 2019 for Delhi (all stations average), showing PM2.5, PM10, NO2, O3 modelled and observed concentrations for Day+1.
10 S. Agarwal et al. / Science of the Total Environment 735 (2020) 139454

Fig. 10. Percentile values of modelled and observed concentrations (Day +1) for each pollutant.

3.2. Model performance on 2018 dataset (training)
In order to assess the initial functioning of the model, it was first
used to predict daily pollutant concentrations for the year 2018 itself.
The results of ANN based forecasting model have been compiled for all
the stations and performance of the model has been gauged using vari-
ous matrices. The model was also tested for various combinations of RTC
and RS options. Fig. 5 shows the model performance using different
combinations of these options (averaged for all pollutants). It was evi-
dent that RMSE was lowest for the model optimized with real time cor-
rection (RTC) and No Resampling (RS) throughout the forecast horizon
of day0 to day4. Overall, the NMB was found to be very low in all the
forecasting scenarios. Coefficient of correlation between the observed
concentrations and forecasted results (averaged over all stations) for
the forecast horizon of day0 to day4 was high for model trained and op-
timized considering No RTC-No RS and RTC-No RS event. A high corre-
lation with R2 N 0.8 was observed for model trained and optimized
with RTC - No RS mode for day 0. Using the RTC-No RS helps to reduce
the NMB for all pollutants with improved RMSE and R2. Hence the RTC-
No RS shows the best model setting for forecasting of the pollutant for
all 4 days. The model was trained and optimized with least error on
day0, however for subsequent days, higher error was observed with
No RTC - RS for PM10, O3 and NO2. In case of PM2.5, higher error was ob-
served for models trained with No RTC - No RS optimization. The model
validation was found to be best with the RTC – No RS options.
This was concluded that the model shows the best performance for
all the pollutants with RTC-No RS settings, whereas considering other
optimization scenarios the model forecasted negative bias indicating
under estimation of forecast result. The model was finalised with the
RTC option (and without RS option) and then used for further valida-
tion. Fig. 6 shows the averaged performance of the finalised model for
the time horizon of Day0 to Day4. It also shows the relative root mean
square (RRMSE) averaged over all stations as a function of forecast ho-
rizon from day0 to day4. Coefficient of correlations varied from
0.58–0.87 for PM10, 0.52–0.87 for PM2.5, 0.45–0.82 for NO2 and
0.57–0.73 for ozone, across the forecast time horizon of Day0 to Day4.

Table 3
RRMSE, NMB, R2 value for each pollutant for each forecasted Day (0–4).

Day/pollutant PM10 PM2.5 NO2 O3

Day0 RRMSE = 0.189 RRMSE = 0.289 RRMSE = 0.123 RRMSE = 0.187

NMB = −0.007 NMB = −0.011 NMB = −0.004 NMB = −0.003
R2 = 0.88 R2 = 0.86 R2 = 0.87 R2 = 0.79
Day1 RRMSE = 0.329 RRMSE = 0.451 RRMSE = 0.203 RRMSE = 0.220
NMB = −0.013 NMB = −0.018 NMB = 0.003 NMB = 0.014
R2 = 0.63 R2 = 0.65 R2 = 0.62 R2 = 0.71
Day2 RRMSE = 0.357 RRMSE = 0.483 RRMSE = 0.218 RRMSE = 0.229
NMB = −0.008 NMB = −0.018 NMB = −0.000 NMB = 0.037
R2 = 0.56 R2 = 0.59 R2 = 0.57 R2 = 0.69
Day3 RRMSE = 0.371 RRMSE = 0.521 RRMSE = 0.223 RRMSE = 0.228
NMB = −0.011 NMB = −0.009 NMB = −0.021 NMB = 0.006
R2 = 0.53 R2 = 0.54 R2 = 0.56 R2 = 0.69
Day4 RRMSE = 0.383 RRMSE = 0.557 RRMSE = 0.221 RRMSE = 0.232
NMB = −0.005 NMB = −0.004 NMB = −0.007 NMB = 0.023
R2 = 0.50 R2 = 0.49 R2 = 0.57 R2 = 0.68
 S. Agarwal et al. / Science of the Total Environment 735 (2020) 139454
NMB was found to be consistently low, while RRMSE was found to in-
crease considerably from Day0 to Day4.
Station-wise performance of the model for the year 2018 is depicted
in Fig. 7 using RRMSE, NMB, and R2 values. The model was forecasted
with relatively high RRMSE N0.5 for NO2 at 3 stations, however for
most locations RRMSE was less varying between 0.3 and 0.4 indicating
good validation of forecast output for all pollutants. The model forecast
showed low bias (NMB) for most stations. However two stations,
Najafgarh and Wazirpur monitoring stations were predicted with
higher negative and positive bias for PM10 and O3, respectively, suggest-
ing under estimation and over estimation of forecast output result. The
model forecast showed good correlation with observed concentration
having R2 N 0.5 for most stations for all pollutants indicating good vali-
dation of forecast output. However, for NO2 for few stations (e.g.
Dwarka), the model results showed less correlation with observed con-
centration. The impact of highly fluctuating local emissions near a sta-
tion is a possible reason for lower model performance at few specific
locations.
3.2.1. Residual behaviour analysis
As a separate ANN model is trained for each monitoring station, the
residual behaviour analysis has been carried out at station level for fore-
cast day+1. Residuals have been defined as the difference between the
logarithm of the forecasted and observed values. These residuals have
been analysed as function of the observation value and the input mete-
orological variables. This analysis shows that the forecasts are lower for
very high concentration and somewhat higher for the very low concen-
trations, as is also evident from the time series plots (Fig. 9). Fig. 8 show
the analysis for the PM2.5 forecasts day+1 in 2019 at station Major
Dhyan Chand National Stadium, Delhi. No significant trends are ob-
served for the plots of the residuals against the meteorological input
data.
3.3. Independent evaluation of the forecasting model on 2019 dataset
The model with RTC and No RS has been independently evaluated
for the whole year 2019. Table 3 shows the RRMSE, NMB, and R2 aver-
aged over all stations as a function of forecast horizon from Day0 to
Day4 for different pollutants. Overall, the NMB was found to be very
low for all respective pollutants, high correlation with R2 ~ 0.79–0.88
was observed for Day0 for all the four pollutants. The performance of
model somewhat deteriorates from Day0 to Day4. Day4 forecasts
show a correlation of 0.49–0.68 for different pollutants. The deteriora-
tion of model performance for ozone was found to be lowest over
Day0 to Day4. This could be attributed to lesser variability in the
ozone values in comparison to other pollutants owing to high back-
ground concentrations in India (Sharma and Khare, 2017). On the
other hand, PM and NO2 values are found be having higher variability
due to presence of local sources.
The performance metric values of R2 (0.5–0.68), and NMB (±0.02)
shows that even for the 4th day of forecasts, they are good enough to
initiate plans and take preliminary measures for reducing exposures
or mitigate emissions. However, as we move close to the actual day,
the quality of forecasts go further up, and hence more stringent mea-
sures can be planned over and above the measures taken on preliminary
basis. One important factor to be highlighted is that the model was
trained only for one-year 2018, and the performance of the model will
is expected to improve further with addition of more training datasets
in coming years.
Time-series plots were prepared for all the stations and were aver-
aged for Delhi to compare forecasts with actual observations. Fig. 9 pre-
sents the daily observed average PM2.5, PM10, NO2 and O3
concentrations at Delhi for year 2019 and its comparison with fore-
casted concentrations: for Day+1. It can be observed that the forecasted
concentrations were close to observation values for most of the time
throughout monitoring period, except for some extremely high
11
concentrations in between. Very high concentrations are observed in
the months of October to January, mainly on account of agricultural res-
idue burning events and meteorological adversity. The peaks observed
during October and November is also linked to agricultural burning in
the upwind states of Delhi and hence the data on fire counts for several
years can help further improving the model. RTC ad RS options can also
be further optimized to account for peaks.
Fig. 10 shows the percentile values calculated for the observed and
modelled pollutant concentrations for Day+1 for 2019. The model per-
forms extremely well in the middle ranges, and under-estimates in the
upper ranges. For PM10, up-to 82 percentile values are satisfactorily pre-
dicted in year 2019, while for PM2.5, 88 percentile and for NO2, 84 per-
centile values are reliably forecasted. However for ozone even the
peaks are predicted fairly well. Hence the model needs improvement
in predicting the extreme PM values. Ozone observation values show
lowest standard deviations and could be a reason for better perfor-
mance of the model, than PM which shows more fluctuations.
The model performance is satisfactory in most of the percentile
range, except for the very high peak values (N85 percentile). Pollution
levels in Delhi show a strong seasonal cycle. As many monitoring sta-
tions are only operational since 2018, only one year of data could be
used to train the model which is a limitation to train for these seasonal
trends. Additionally, all forecast models have difficulties in predicting
concentration peaks, as peaks are influenced by the variability in the
local emissions as well. This is highlighted by the variability in pollution
levels in Delhi, even during peak episodes. The model is still extremely
useful in the rest of the percentile range of pollutant concentrations
and can be used. With further use of the model, more data can be fed
in the model for training purposes, which can further improve the per-
formance, especially for the prediction of peaks. Finally, monitoring sta-
tion observations in Delhi are also impacted by local emissions and their
random fluctuation, which are difficult to be captured by the forecasting
models.
4. Conclusion
The model based on ANN has been set up with the freely available
datasets of forecasted meteorology and air pollutant concentrations,
and has been trained and optimized with best possible combinations
of RTC and RS. This model has been validated in real-time against
1 year of pollutant concentrations for all four pollutants. Various perfor-
mance metrics like RMSE, R2 and NMB, showed satisfactory perfor-
mance of the model for the four pollutants, and except for few
stations, the values were close to the observed value of the monitoring
station at the site. Currently, the forecasts have been set up with only
one year of historical data as the monitoring network in Delhi has
been evolving and has grown dramatically in last few years only. Perfor-
mance of the model is expected to go up further, once more historical
data are available to train, optimize and validate the forecasts. An addi-
tional shortcoming of the model is that it takes a single point meteorol-
ogy data for whole Delhi and not station wise, as the available NCEP FNL
and GFS meteorology data is of low resolution, and for better perfor-
mance of the model, high resolution meteorology inputs can be used
in future. However, in-spite of homogenous representation of meteorol-
ogy, the forecasting results are found to be well correlated with the ob-
servations. In comparison to the uncertainties of the emission
inventories, and the huge computing power needed to run the chemical
transport models, this ANN based forecasting model is fast and less re-
source intensive, and can be used for generation of daily forecasts. The
forecasts generated through the demonstrated model can be used for
scientific purposes and also to take short term corrective actions for
air quality management in highly polluted cities. The model can be rep-
licated in other cities after the required set up, optimization and valida-
tion and become a very useful tool for emergency planning and short-
term air quality management.
12 S. Agarwal et al. / Science of the Total Environment 735 (2020) 139454
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Shivang Agarwal:Writing - original draft.Sumit Sharma:Conceptu-
alization, Writing - original draft, Supervision.Suresh R.:Investigation.
Md H. Rahman:Investigation.Stijn Vranckx:Methodology, Software.
Bino Maiheu:Methodology, Software.Lisa Blyth:Conceptualization.
Stijn Janssen:Conceptualization, Writing - review & editing.Prashant
Gargava:Writing - review & editing.V.K. Shukla:Investigation.Sakshi
Batra:Investigation.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
We would like to acknowledge Mr. Santosh Kumar Muriki, TERI, for
helping us retrieving meteorological datasets and Ms. Seema Kundu,
CES, TERI for providing the GIS support. We would also acknowledge
and thank the Central Pollution Control Board of India to provide
funding support for this work under the EPC grants AQM/Modeling
Techniques-EPC Project/2017/13263.
References
Ali, K., Inamdar, S.R., Beig, G., Ghude, S., Peshin, S., 2012. Surface ozone scenario at Pune
and Delhi during the decade of 1990s. J. Earth Syst. Sci. 121 (2), 373–383. https://
doi.org/10.1007/s12040-012-0170-1.
Alimissis, A., Philippopoulos, K., Tzanis, C.G., Deligiorgi, D., 2018. Spatial estimation of
urban air pollution with the use of artificial neural network models. Atmos. Environ.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2018.07.058.
Burnett, R.T., Pope III, C.A., Ezzati, M., Olives, C., Lim, S.S., Mehta, S., Shin, H.H., Singh, G.,
Hubbell, B., Brauer, M., Anderson, H.R., Smith, K.R., Balmes, J.R., Bruce, N.G., Kan, H.,
Laden, F., PrüssUstün, A., Turner, M.C., Gapstur, S.M., Diver, W.R., Cohen, A., 2014.
An integrated risk functions for estimating the global burden of disease attributable
to ambient fine particulate matter exposure. Environ. Health Perspect. 122 (4).
https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1307049.
Chelani, A.B., Chalapati Rao, C., Phadke, K., Hasan, M., 2002. Prediction of sulphur dioxide
concentration using artificial neural networks. Environ. Model. Softw. 17 (2),
159–166. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-8152(01)00061-5.
Cheng, Z., Luo, L., Wang, S., Wang, Y., Sharma, S., Shimadera, H., Wang, X., Bressi, M., de
Miranda, R.M., Jiang, J., Zhou, W., Fajardo, O., Yan, N., Hao, J., 2016. Status and charac-
teristics of ambient PM2.5 pollution in global megacities. Environ. Int. 89–90,
212–221.
Elangasinghe, M.A., Singhal, N., Dirks, K.N., Salmond, J.A., 2014. Development of an ANN–
based air pollution forecasting system with explicit knowledge through sensitivity
analysis. Atmos. Pollut. Res. 5 (4), 696–708. https://doi.org/10.5094/APR.2014.079
(ISSN 1309-1042).
Gogikar, P., Tyagi, B., Gorai, A., 2018. Seasonal prediction of particulate matter over the
steel city of India using neural network models. Model. Earth Syst. Environ. https://
doi.org/10.1007/s40808-018-0530-1.
HEI, 2019. State of Global Air 2019. Health Effects Institute retrieved from. www.
stateofglobalair.org.
Hooyberghs, J., Mensink, C., Dumont, G., Fierens, F., Brasseur, O., 2005. A neural network
forecast for daily average PM10 concentrations in Belgium. Atmos. Environ. 39,
3279–3289.
Jain, S., Khare, M., 2010. Adaptive Neuro-fuzzy Modeling for Prediction of Ambient CO
Concentration at Urban Intersections and Roadways. , pp. 203–212. https://doi.org/
10.1007/s11869-010-0073-8.
Krishan, M., Jha, S., Das, J., Singh, A., Goyal, M.K., Sekar, C., 2019. Air quality modelling
using long short-term memory (LSTM) over NCT-Delhi, India. Air Qual. Atmos. Health
12, 899–908. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11869-019-00696-7.
Kukkonen, J., Partanen, L., Karppinen, A., Ruuskanen, J., Junninen, H., Kolehmainen, M.,
Niska, H., Dorling, S., Chatterton, T., Foxall, R., Cawley, G., 2003. Extensive evaluation
of neural network models for the prediction of NO2 and PM10 concentrations, com-
pared with a deterministic modelling system and measurements in central Helsinki.
Atmos. Environ. 37, 4539–4550.
Lu, W.Z., Wang, W.J., Wang, X.K., Xu, Z.B., Leung, Y.T., 2003. Using improved neural net-
work model to analyse RSP, NOx and NO2 levels in urban air in Mong Kok, Hong
Kong. Environ. Monit. Assess. 87, 235–254.
Mahapatra, A., 2010. Prediction of daily ground-level ozone concentration. Environ.
Monit. Assess. 170, 159–170. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-009-1223-z.
Mallik, C., Mahapatra, P.S., Kumar, P., Panda, S., Boopathy, R., Das, T., Lal, S., 2019. Influence
of regional emissions on SO2 concentrations over Bhubaneswar, a capital city in east-
ern India downwind of the Indian SO2 hotspots. Atmos. Environ. 209, 220–232.
Mishra, D., Goyal, P., 2015. Development of artificial intelligence based NO2 forecasting
models at Taj Mahal, Agra. Atmos. Pollut. Res. 6 (1), 99–106. https://doi.org/
10.5094/APR.2015.012.
MoHUA, 2017. Handbook of Urban Statistics. Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. Gov-
ernment of India.
Nagendra, S., Khare, M., 2005. Modelling urban air quality using artificial neural network.
Clean Techn. Environ. Policy 7 (2), 116–216.
Nagendra, S.M.S., Khare, M., 2006. Artificial neural network approach for modelling nitro-
gen dioxide dispersion from vehicular exhaust emissions. Ecol. Model. 190 (1–2),
99–115. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2005.01.062.
NOAA, 2001. Air Quality Forecasting: A Review of Federal Programs and Research Needs.
NOAA Retrieved from. https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/aqrsd/reports/forecasting.pdf
(Accessed on 12/2/2020).
Ordieres, J.B., Vergara, E.P., Capuz, R.S., Salazar, R.E., 2005. Neural network prediction
model for fine particulate matter (PM2.5) on the US–Mexico border in El Paso
(Texas) and Ciudad Jua’rez (Chihuahua). Environ. Model. Softw. 20 (5), 547–559.
Perez, P., Reyes, J., 2002. Prediction of maximum of 24-h average of PM10 concentrations
30 h in advance in Santiago, Chile. Atmos. Environ. 36, 4555–4561.
Prakash, A., Kumar, U., Kumar, K., Jain, V.K., 2011. A wavelet-based neural network model
to predict ambient air pollutants’ concentration. Environ. Model. Assess. 16 (5),
503–517. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10666-011-9270-6.
Reich, S.L., Gomez, D.R., Dawidowski, L.E., 1999. Artificial neural network for the identifi-
cation of unknown air pollution sources. Atmos. Environ. 33 (18), 3045–3052.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S1352-2310(98)00418-X ISSN 1352-2310.
Sawlani, R., Agnihotri, R., Sharma, C., Patra, P.K., Dimri, A.P., Ram, K., Verma, R.L., 2019. The
severe Delhi SMOG of 2016: a case of delayed crop residue burning, coincident fire-
cracker emissions, and atypical meteorology. Atmos. Pollut. Res. https://doi.org/
10.1016/j.apr.2018.12.015.
Sekar, C., Gurjar, B.R., CSP, Ojha, Kumar, Goyal Manish, 2016. Potential assessment of neu-
ral network and decision tree algorithms for forecasting ambient PM2.5 and CO con-
centrations: a case study. ASCE’s J. Hazard. Toxic Radioact. Waste 20 (4), 9. https://
doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)HZ.2153-5515.0000276 (A5015001-1, A5015001).
Sharma, S., Khare, M., 2017. Simulating ozone concentrations using precursor emission
inventories in Delhi–National Capital Region of India. Atmos. Environ. 151, 117–132.
Sharma, S., Sharma, P., Khare, M., Kwatra, S., 2016. Statistical behavior of ozone in urban
environment. Sustain. Environ. Res. 26 (2016), 142–148.
Sharma, M.C., Pandey, V.K., Kumar, R., Latief, S.U., Chakrawarthy, E., Acharya, P., 2018. Sea-
sonal characteristics of black carbon aerosol mass concentrations and influence of
meteorology, New Delhi (India). Urban Clim. 24, 968–981. https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.uclim.2017.12.002 (ISSN 2212-0955).
Singh, K.P., Gupta, S., Kumar, A., Shukla, S.P., 2012. Linear and nonlinear modeling ap-
proaches for urban air quality prediction. Sci. Total Environ. 426, 244–255. https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2012.03.076.
Srivastava, A., Joseph, A.E., Patil, S., More, A., Dixit, R.C., Prakash, M., 2005. Air toxics in am-
bient air of Delhi. Atmos. Environ. 39 (1), 59–71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
atmosenv.2004.09.053.
WHO, 2014. Burden of Disease from Ambient Air Pollution for 2012, Description of
Method, Version 1.3. World Health Organisation, Geneva.
WHO, 2018. Global Ambient Air Quality Database (update 2018). World Health Organisa-
tion Retrieved from. https://www.who.int/airpollution/data/cities/en/ (Accessed on
12/2/2020).
Wilkinson, S., Mills, G., Illidge, R., Davies, W.J., 2011. How is O3 pollution reducing our
food supply? J. Exp. Bot. https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/err317.