PAHs urban concentrations maps using support vector machines

Air pollution health effects studies are based on data collected by monitoring stations. Pollutant exposure maps greatly improve the evaluation of health effects. The study of exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in urban areas is one of the goals of the EXPAH LIFE+ Project. An integrated approach has been applied to simulate PAHs levels in the urban area of Rome. In particular, support vector machines (SVMs) were applied to reconstruct PAHs urban concentrations. Starting from PAHs results provided by a chemical transport model (CTM) FARM and observed data collected in field campaigns of PM2.5 with PAHs content between June 2011 and May 2012, SVM methods were applied to build a model able to forecast PAHs exposure. The SVM has shown excellent results in reproduction of experimental data, improving those achieved by the FARM model. Finally, the SVM has produced very congruent PAHs exposure maps.