Estimation of Fine Particulate Matter in Taipei Using Landuse Regression and Bayesian Maximum Entropy Methods

Fine airborne particulate matter (PM(2.5)) has adverse effects on human health. Assessing the long-term effects of PM(2.5) exposure on human health and ecology is often limited by a lack of reliable PM(2.5) measurements. In Taipei, PM(2.5) levels were not systematically measured until August, 2005. Due to the popularity of geographic information systems (GIS), the landuse regression method has been widely used in the spatial estimation of PM concentrations. This method accounts for the potential contributing factors of the local environment, such as traffic volume. Geostatistical methods, on other hand, account for the spatiotemporal dependence among the observations of ambient pollutants. This study assesses the performance of the landuse regression model for the spatiotemporal estimation of PM(2.5) in the Taipei area. Specifically, this study integrates the landuse regression model with the geostatistical approach within the framework of the Bayesian maximum entropy (BME) method. The resulting epistemic framework can assimilate knowledge bases including: (a) empirical-based spatial trends of PM concentration based on landuse regression, (b) the spatio-temporal dependence among PM observation information, and (c) site-specific PM observations. The proposed approach performs the spatiotemporal estimation of PM(2.5) levels in the Taipei area (Taiwan) from 2005–2007.