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Prediction of the Level of Air Pollution

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Water Air Soil Pollut (2014) 225:2063
DOI 10.1007/s11270-014-2063-1

Prediction of the Level of Air Pollution Using Principal

Component Analysis and Artificial Neural Network
Techniques: a Case Study in Malaysia
Azman Azid & Hafizan Juahir & Mohd Ekhwan Toriman &
Mohd Khairul Amri Kamarudin & Ahmad Shakir Mohd Saudi &
Che Noraini Che Hasnam & Nor Azlina Abdul Aziz &
Fazureen Azaman & Mohd Talib Latif & Syahrir Farihan Mohamed Zainuddin &
Mohamad Romizan Osman & Mohammad Yamin

Received: 6 April 2014 / Accepted: 2 July 2014

# Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014

Abstract This study focused on the pattern recognition
of Malaysian air quality based on the data obtained from
the Malaysian Department of Environment (DOE). Eight
air quality parameters in ten monitoring stations in
Malaysia for 7 years (20052011) were gathered.
Principal component analysis (PCA) in the environmetric
approach was used to identify the sources of pollution in
the study locations. The combination of PCA and artifi-
cial neural networks (ANN) was developed to determine
its predictive ability for the air pollutant index (API). The
PCA has identified that CH4, NmHC, THC, O3, and
PM10 are the most significant parameters. The PCA-
ANN showed better predictive ability in the determina-
tion of API with fewer variables, with R2 and root mean
square error (RMSE) values of 0.618 and 10.017,
A. Azid : H. Juahir (*) : M. E. Toriman :
M. K. A. Kamarudin : A. S. M. Saudi : C. N. C. Hasnam :
N. A. A. Aziz : F. Azaman : M. Yamin
East Coast Environmental Research Institute (ESERI),
Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin, Gong Badak Campus,
21300 Kuala Terengganu, Terengganu, Malaysia
e-mail: hafizanj@gmail.com
M. T. Latif
School of Environmental and Natural Resource Sciences,
Faculty of Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan
Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
S. F. M. Zainuddin : M. R. Osman
Kulliyyah of Science, International Islamic University
Malaysia, 25200 Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia
respectively. The work has demonstrated the importance
of historical data in sampling plan strategies to achieve
desired research objectives, as well as to highlight the
possibility of determining the optimum number of sam-
pling parameters, which in turn will reduce costs and time
of sampling.
Keywords Environmetric . Pattern recognition .
Principal component analysis . Artificial neural network
1 Introduction
Air pollution is a serious issue that needs to be given
immediate and serious attention by all relevant author-
ities around the globe, as it is one of the most important
factors that contributes to the quality of life and living.
Air pollution can be defined as a condition in which air
pollutants are found in the atmosphere at high enough
concentrations, above their normal ambient levels
(Seinfeld and Pandis 1998). The pollutants in the atmo-
sphere may disperse and/or concentrate during varied
time periods. This problem exists, especially in urban
areas where there are very high concentrations of pop-
ulation and manufacturing industries (Azmi et al. 2010).
The major sources of air pollutants in Malaysia are
mobile, stationary, and trans-boundary sources (Afroz
et al. 2003; Jamal et al. 2004; Department of
Environment Malaysia DOE 2005; Mutalib et al.
2063, Page 2 of 14
2013). The mobile sources are mainly attributed to
motor vehicle emissions (Awang et al. 2000; Mutalib
et al. 2013), which contributed 82 % of the air emission
load in Peninsular Malaysia (Yahaya et al. 2006). The
emissions of industrial fuel burning, power stations,
industrial production processes, domestic and commer-
cial furnaces, and open burning at solid waste disposal
sites, which contributed to 9, 5, 3, 0.2, and 0.8 % of the
total air emission load, respectively, are types of station-
ary sources in Peninsular Malaysia (Yahaya et al. 2006).
Uncontrolled burning to clear land by plantation owners
and farmers in Indonesia in 2006 is a case of a trans-
boundary pollution source that affected neighboring
countries (Jamal et al. 2004). Malaysia is one of the
countries that experienced the trans-boundary haze epi-
sodes, and the worst occurrence was in 1997 (Brauer
and Jamal 1998).
The air pollutant index (API) can be defined as a
number that is used for reporting the quality of air with
respect to its effects on human health (Bishoi et al.
2009). The API is an important tool to inform the public
about how clean or polluted the atmosphere is and what
associated health effects might be of concern to us. The
API is an index for reporting daily, calculated using the
five major air pollutants (ozone (O3), particulate matter
below 10 m (PM10), carbon monoxide (CO), sulfur
dioxide (SO2), and nitrogen dioxide (NO2)) regulated by
the Clean Air Act (Department of Environment DOE
2014). To recover and maintain air quality and protect
public health, the Malaysian Department of Environment
(DOE) has set up the API and established national air
quality standards through the Recommended Malaysian
Air Quality Guidelines (RMAQG) for each of these
pollutants (Mutalib et al. 2013; Dominick et al. 2012).
The higher the level of the API, the greater the level of air
pollution and the greater the health concern. The status of
air quality in Malaysia is ruled by the establishment of the
RMAQG issued by the DOE since 1989 (Mutalib et al.
2013; Dominick et al. 2012).
Controlling the source of air pollutants is one of the
major challenges in the world. In Malaysia, the DOE has
been consistently monitoring the air quality status and
collecting data in order to inform people about major
pollutant concentrations in real time (Dragomir 2010).
Once the lack of compliance is determined, the data can
be used to advise or caution the decision makers or
planners to avoid health effects (Kamal et al. 2006;
Mutalib et al. 2013). Two major air pollutants are
PM10 and O3, particularly in the urban and suburban
Water Air Soil Pollut (2014) 225:2063
areas in Malaysia (Dominick et al. 2012; Latif et al.
2012; Mutalib et al. 2013), and have been recognized
as two of the major concerns that have high potential
for deleterious effects on health (Mahiyudin et al.
2013; Mazrura et al. 2011; Siew et al. 2008; Afroz
et al. 2003).
Although the DOE has organized programs on
air pollution in Malaysia which have provided
important data, extensive analyses on these valu-
able data using statistical tools such as environmetric
techniques for pattern recognition have not been fully
applied. Environmetric techniques (also termed as
chemometrics) are a sub-set of multivariate statistical
modelling and data treatment. These techniques are the
best approaches to apply to a large amount of complex
environmental monitoring data because they can avoid
misinterpretation of results produced during data analysis
(Mutalib et al. 2013). Environmetric techniques have
been applied in this study for pattern recognition, which
provides an understanding of the important patterns and
underlying relationships in data, for getting deeper in-
sights into the data and for modelling and visualizing
complex data for more insightful analysis. The applica-
tions of different environmetric techniques such as cluster
analysis (CA), principal component analysis (PCA), fac-
tor analysis (FA), and discriminant analysis (DA) have
been extensively applied in many scientific studies over
the last few years (Mutalib et al. 2013; Singh et al. 2004,
2005), especially in air quality monitoring. Examples of
air quality monitoring studies that used environmetric
techniques are Dominick et al. (2012), Wei-Zhen et al.
(2011), Juneng et al. (2009), Lau et al. (2009), and Pires
et al. (2008a, b, 2009). The application of these methods
for interpretation of the complex databases permits un-
derstanding of the air quality in the study area, especially
for developing suitable plans for efficient management of
the air quality monitoring programs.
The prediction of air quality using a simple mathemat-
ical formula faces various challenges. It is unable to
capture the non-linear relationship among different vari-
ables (Mahboubeh et al. 2012) due to the complexity of
the data (Mutalib et al. 2013). The data on air quality are
found as stochastic time series, thereby making it possible
to make a prediction on the basis of historical data
(Giorgio and Piero 1996). Prediction of air quality is
important to afford planning, proper actions, and control-
ling strategies to minimize problems in human health.
Several methods have been used for modelling air
quality. The artificial neural network (ANN) is one of
Water Air Soil Pollut (2014) 225:2063 Page 3 of 14, 2063

the methods and has become a popular and useful tool
for modelling environmental systems (Maier and Dandy
2001). ANN is a technique with greater flexibility, effi-
ciency, and accuracy, since it has an attractive feature
which is similar to the brain. The ANN can be trained to
identify non-linear patterns between input and output
values and can solve complex problems much faster
than digital computers (Rahman et al. 2013; Zhang
et al. 1998), and able to train accurately when presented
with a new data (Azid et al. 2013; Afzali et al. 2012;
Mahboubeh et al. 2012; Kurt et al. 2008; Sohn et al.
1999). Previous studies done by Mutalib et al. (2013),
Alkasassbeh et al. (2013), Brunelli et al. (2007), Tecer
(2007), Perez and Reyes (2006), and Niska et al. (2004,
2005) prove that ANN is very well suited for solving
environmental problems, especially in the analysis of air
pollution. The ANN technique also can perform tasks
based on training or initial experience, and it does not
need an algorithm to solve a problem. This is because it
can generate its own distribution of the weights of the
links through learning and is easily inserted into the
existing technology (Garca et al. 2011).
The objectives of the study are to identify the poten-
tial sources of variations in air quality and to implement
the integration of data-driven modelling in predicting
selected Malaysian Air Pollutant Index (API).
2 Materials and Methods
2.1 Study Area
Ten continuous air monitoring stations were selected. The
stations are Pasir Gudang (STA01), Kuching (STA02),
Bukit Rambai (STA03), Tasek (STA04), Nilai (STA05),
Klang (STA06), Balok Baru (STA07), Pengkalan Chepa
(STA08), Paka (STA09), and Labuan (STA10). The
coordinates and locations of the air quality monitoring
stations are shown in Table 1 and Fig. 1, respectively.
Eight stations are located in Peninsular Malaysia and
another two are in East Malaysia. These stations, which
lie in heavily industrialized areas, residential areas, and
areas surrounded by congested main roads, were selected
due to their location differences. Based on the Malaysian
DOE (2010) report, the overall status of air quality in
Malaysia is within good and moderate levels most of the
time. There are no occurrences of major natural disasters
(such as typhoons, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes)
in these areas. The value of the API in Malaysia is usually
influenced by the concentration of suspended particulate
matter (PM10) (Awang et al. 2000) because the concen-
tration of PM10 is always higher than that of other pollut-
ants (Othman et al. 2010).
2.2 Data Collection
The air quality data were gathered from the Air Quality
Division of the DOE, Malaysia. The data were collected
and monitored by Alam Sekitar Malaysia Sdn. Bhd.
(ASMA), the authorized agency for DOE. All stations
were identified based on the availability of data starting
from January 1, 2005, to December 31, 2011. The air
quality variables used in this study are carbon monoxide
(CO), ozone (O3), particulate matter under 10 m
(PM10), sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2),
methane (CH4), non-methane hydrocarbon (NmHC),
and total hydrocarbon (THC). The measurements re-
corded for these variables are in the form of hourly
reading. The equipment used by ASMA to monitor the
air quality data are from Teledyne Technologies Inc.,

Table 1 Location and

coordinates (longitude and STA. ID Location Latitude Longitude
latitude) of air quality monitoring
stations in the study area STA01 Pasir Gudang, Johor N01 28.225 E103 53.637
STA02 Kuching, Sarawak N01 33.734 E110 23.329
STA03 Bukit Rambai, Melaka N02 15.510 E102 10.364
STA04 Tasek, Perak N04 37.781 E101 06.964
STA05 Nilai, Negeri Sembilan N02 49.246 E101 48.877
STA06 Klang, Selangor N03 00.620 E101 24.484
STA07 Balok Baru, Pahang N03 57.726 E103 22.955
STA08 Pengkalan Chepa, Kelantan N06 09.520 E102 17.262
STA09 Paka, Terengganu N04 35.880 E103 26.096
STA10 Labuan N05 19.980 E115 14.315
2063, Page 4 of 14
Fig. 1 Location of the ten selected air quality monitoring stations in Malaysia
USA, and Met One Instruments Inc., USA. According
to the ASMA (2007) report, Standard Operating
Procedures for Continuous Air Quality Monitoring
(2006), the analyzer used by ASMA to monitor PM10
was a BAM-1020 Beta Attenuation Mas Monitor from
Met One Instruments Inc. USA. This instrument has a
fairly high resolution of 0.1 g m3 at a 16.7-L min1
flow rate, with lower detection limits of <4.8 g m3
and <1.0 g m3 for 1 and 24 h, respectively. The
instruments used by ASMA to monitor SO2, CO, and
O3 were the Teledyne API Model 100A/100E, Teledyne
API Model 200A/200E, Teledyne API Model 300/
300E, and Teledyne API Model 400/400E, respectively,
from Teledyne Technologies Inc., USA. SO2 measure-
ment was based on the UV fluorescence method, where
the lowest level of detection is at 0.4 ppb. NOx measure-
ment used the chemiluminescence detection method
with the same detection limit as the SO2 analyzer. CO
was measured using the non-dispersive, infrared absorp-
tion (Beer-Lambert) method with 0.5 % precision and
Water Air Soil Pollut (2014) 225:2063
the lowest detection of 0.04 ppm, while O3 was mea-
sured through the UV absorption (Beer-Lambert) meth-
od with a detection limit of 0.4 ppb. The measurements
of SO2, NOx, CO, and O3 were at a precision level of
0.5 %. THC, CH4, and NmHC, the analyzers used by
ASMA, were measured using a Teledyne API M4020
from Teledyne Technologies Inc., USA, which is
equipped with a flame-ionization detector (FID) and a
measurement accuracy of 1 %. These instruments were
used due to well-proven accuracy, reliability, and
robustness.
2.3 Data and Data Pre-treatment
A total of 202,080 data points (8 variables25,260 data
set) were utilized in this analysis. The total number of
missing data in the data points was very small (3 %)
compared to the overall data. In order to facilitate the
data analysis, the nearest neighbor method was applied
through the use of the XLSTAT 2014 add-in software
Water Air Soil Pollut (2014) 225:2063
(Junninen et al. 2004; Dominick et al. 2012; Azid et al.
2013). This method examines the distance between each
point and the closest point to it. The nearest neighbor
method is the simplest scheme, where the end points of
the gaps are used as estimates for all missing values
(Junninen et al. 2004; Dominick et al. 2012). The equa-
tion applied in this method is shown in Eq. 1:
y y1 if x x1 x2 x1 =2 or
1 beginning of the PCA in order to examine the correla-
y y1 if x > x1 x2 x1 =2 tion of the variables used in the PCA (Tabachnick and
where y is the interpolant, x is the time point of the
interpolant, y1 and x1 are the coordinates of the starting
point of the gap, and y2 and x2 are the endpoints of the gap.
2.4 Environmetric Analysis and Modelling
2.4.1 Principal Component Analysis
The dimension of a huge data set can be trimmed down
by using principal component analysis (PCA), which is
considered as one of the most prevalent and useful sta-
tistical methods for uncovering the potential structure of a
set of variables. This method is used for explaining the
variance of a large set of interrelated variables by
transforming them into a new, smaller set of uncorrelated
(independent) variables, namely principal components
(PCs) (Simeonov et al. 2003; Dominick et al. 2012;
Mutalib et al. 2013). PCs are orthogonal and uncorrelated
to each other and have linear combinations of the original
variables (Abdul-Wahab et al. 2005; Viana et al. 2006;
Skrbi et al. 2007; Juneng et al. 2009). PCA has the ability
to show the most significant variables which can indicate
the source of the pollutants. This is because, in the
analysis process, the variables that are less significant
are omitted from the data set with a minimal loss of
original data (Singh et al. 2004, 2005; Shrestha and
Kazama 2007). The raw air quality variables were stan-
dardized through Z-scale transformation to a mean of 0.0
and variance of 1.0 by applying Eq. 2:

varimax rotation method was applied because this meth-
Z ij X ij = 2
where Zij is the jth value of the standard score of the
measured variable i, Xij is the jth observation of variable i;
is the variables mean value; and is the standard
deviation. The Z-scale transformation method was used
to ensure that the different air quality variables had equal
weights in the statistical analysis process. Besides, these
transformations will homogenize the variance of the
Page 5 of 14, 2063
distribution and prevent any classification errors that
may occur from groups described by variables of
completely different sizes (Simeonov et al. 2002). Then,
the data matrix was decomposed into scores or compo-
nents and loadings (correlations between the original
variables and the PCs extracted by the analysis) for the
variables.
Bartletts test of sphericity was performed at the
Fidell 2001). According to Bartlett (1950), this test was
able to estimate the probability that there were correla-
tions in a matrix. The null hypothesis, H0, of this test
states that there is no correlation significantly different
from 0 between the variables. While the alternative
hypothesis, Ha, states that at least one of the correlations
between the variables is significantly different from 0.
As the computed p value is lower than the significance
level alpha=0.05, one should reject the null hypothesis
H0, and accept the alternative hypothesis Ha. The risk to
reject the null hypothesis, H0, while it is true is lower
than 0.01 %. When the null hypothesis, H0, result is
rejected, then it is confirmed that the variables used in
the PCA are correlated.
The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) test was carried out
in order to measure the sampling adequacy. These ma-
trices measure the sampling adequacy for each variable
along the diagonal and the negatives of the partial
correlation/covariances on the off-diagonals. The diag-
onal elements should be greater than 0.5 at a bare
minimum if the sample is adequate for a given pair of
variables (Field 2000, 2005). If any pair of variables has
a value which is less than 0.5, consider dropping one of
them from the analysis.
The PCs generated by PCA sometimes are not readily
interpreted and should be rotated using any of a number
of applicable methods such as varimax rotation. The goal
of varimax rotation is to minimize the complexity of the
components by making the large loadings larger and the
small loadings smaller within each component. The
od simplifies the factor structure and, therefore, makes its
interpretation easier and more reliable. In the varimax
rotation method, only the PCs with eigenvalues greater
than 1 (>1) are used and considered significant (Kim and
Mueller 1987) in order to obtain the new variables,
known as varifactors (VFs) or factor loadings. This ap-
proach is known as the Kaiser Criterion. The Kaiser
Criterion is used to solve the problem of the number of
2063, Page 6 of 14
components to be retained (Kaiser 1958). The numbers of
VFs obtained by varimax rotations are equal to the num-
ber of variables in accordance with common features and
can include unobservable, hypothetical, and latent vari-
ables. The VFs are values that are used to measure the
correlation between variables. VF values which are great-
er than 0.75 (>0.75) are considered strong, the values
ranging from 0.50 to 0.75 (0.50factor loading0.75)
are considered moderate, and the values ranging from
0.30 to 0.49 (0.30factor loading0.49) are considered
weak factor loadings (Liu et al. 2003). In this study, the
VFs with absolute values greater than 0.75 were set as the
selection threshold. Then, the results of factor scores after
varimax rotation were used for artificial intelligence
modelling. The PCA was examined using XLSTAT
2014 add-in software.
2.5 Artificial Neural Network Model
The artificial neural network (ANN) is a branch of artifi-
cial intelligence, designed to imitate the biological brain
system (Moustris et al. 2010). The ANN can learn com-
plex data patterns and can be applied to the activities of
predicting, clustering, and classification (Hakimpoor
et al. 2011). The ANN technique is able to provide better
prediction, the results of which depend on the input
number of variables (Chaloulakou et al. 2003).
In this study, the multilayered perceptron feed-forward
artificial neural network (MLP-FF-ANN) was applied and
computed by the JMP 10 software, which offers flexibility
and ease of application. This network type consists of a
system of layered interconnected neurons or nodes,
which are arranged to form three layers, namely input
layers (independent variables), hidden layers (one or
more), and the output layers (dependent variables)
(Abdul-Wahab and Al-Alawi 2002; Yetilmezsoy and
Demirel 2007), with nodes in each layer connected to
each other (Hornik et al. 1989; Jain et al. 1996).
Two main phases were involved in this network,
namely forward and backward phases. During the for-
ward phase, the training data point is propagated
through the hidden layer and the output value obtained
was compared with the actual target values to calculate
the error between them (Cigizoglu and Kisi 2006).
Then, the calculated error was propagated back towards
the hidden layer. The output weightings of the node are
adjusted to reduce the errors with each interaction
resulting in improved models. This implies a direction
of information processing (Sun et al. 2008).
Water Air Soil Pollut (2014) 225:2063
As with any other prediction models, the number and
selection of input parameters are very important in ANN
modelling. The combination of the absolute principal
component score obtained from PCA as an input
variable to the multilayer perceptron ANN has been
done previously by Bucinski et al. (2005), OFarrella
et al. (2005), Sousa et al. (2007), Liu et al. (2007), Ravi
and Pramodh (2008), and Zelkic-Susac et al. (2010, 2013)
and proved that this method is very well suited for deci-
sion making and problem solving in different areas. In this
study, rotated PCA data points were used instead of an
unrotated PC, as it provides intermediate diagnostic infor-
mation about the groupings of the chronologies.
Two models were developed and compared, namely
MLP-FF-ANN model A (as a reference) and MLP-FF-
ANN model B. The eight variables were used as input
layers in MLP-FF-ANN model A. The result of factor
scores obtained after varimax rotation in PCA was used
as input layers in MLP-FF-ANN model B. The numbers
of hidden layers were based on the nature of the problem
under study and have been varied depending on the
predicting horizon. The output layers were the API
values. Figure 2 shows the network structure of MLP-
FF-ANN model A and B. Trial-and-error procedure
between one to ten hidden nodes in the network struc-
ture was examined in order to approximate any non-
linear function with any level of accuracy, and it was
used to search the best model for prediction values.
Based on theoretical studies, a network with a small
number of nodes shall probably fail to learn the data,
while too many nodes shall fatefully overfit the training
patterns in the network and give a poor generalization
performance result, especially when dealing with noisy
data in predicting problems (Chaloulakou et al. 2003).
In this analysis, about 202,080 data points were used in
MLP-FF-ANN model A, while 50,520 data points were
used in MLP-FF-ANN model B.
According to Rech (2002), a data point should be
classified into three groups, namely, training, testing,
and validating sub-sets. The analysis of ANN undergoes
three phases: training (60 %), testing (20 %), and vali-
dation (20 %) of the data (Xie et al. 2009). The training
sub-set is used to estimate and learn the parameters
patterns in the data point. The testing sub-set is used to
evaluate the generalization ability of the supposedly
trained network. The validating sub-set is responsible
for performing the final check on the trained network.
To evaluate the results of the ANN models in this
present study, two performance features were
Water Air Soil Pollut (2014) 225:2063 Page 7 of 14, 2063

Fig. 2 Example of a network

(i) MLP-FF-ANN Model A
structure of a multilayer
preceptron feed-forward
artificial neural network; (i)

Eight (8) variables of air pollutants as an

MLP-FF-ANN model A and (ii)
MLP-FF-ANN model B

API

input
Input Layer Hidden Layer Output

(ii) MLP-FF-ANN Model B

Result of factor scores after varimax rotation
as an input

API

Input Layer Hidden Layer Output

considered for the model evaluation, namely coefficient therefore confirming that the air quality variables were
of determination (R2) and root mean square error correlated and not orthogonal. This suggests that PCA
(RMSE). The model with the highest value of R2 and will allow for interpretation of the variability in the data
the lower value of RMSE is declared the best linear with less than the original number of variables (McNeil
model (Norusis 1990; Azid et al. 2013). Then, the et al. 2005). The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) test of
predicted values of the models were compared with each these data shows that the sampling adequacy was greater
other to obtain a parsimonious model (a model that than 0.5 (Table 2). This considered that all variables are
depends on as few variables as necessary). adequate and can apply for further analysis. The estima-
tion of the factor loadings was carried out for assessing
the correlations between air quality variables and the
3 Results and Discussion extracted factors.
After varimax rotation, from eight PCs, only two VFs
3.1 Air Pollutant Source Identification which represent 64.24 % of the variance of the data were
selected due to the eigenvalues greater than 1 (>1.0).
Bartletts test of sphericity revealed that the air quality Despite the cumulative variance being less than 70 %,
data met the sphericity assumption since it had an ob- the cutoff point of the factors was determined using a
served chi-square value of 1.85105 (p<0.05, df=28), scree plot graph (Fig. 3). The eigenvalues less than 1
2063, Page 8 of 14 Water Air Soil Pollut (2014) 225:2063

Table 2 Kaiser-Meyer- of these three air quality variables, this factor is mostly
Olkin (KMO) measure of Pollutant Result
related to the processes of petrochemical produc-
sampling adequacy
CO 0.637 tion from petrochemical industries and the fuel
O3 0.578 combustion from transportation activities (Koppmann
PM10 0.765 2007). Besides, it is also related to the process of bio-
SO2 0.446 mass burning and grazing and the residual of agricultur-
NO2 0.681 al products from agricultural activities (Haiduc and
CH4 0.481 Beldean-Gale 2011).
NMHC 0.442 The VF2 demonstrates 31.91 % of the variance in the
THC 0.486 data. It exhibits high loading from O3 (0.75) and PM10
KMO 0.515 (0.84). The concentration of these pollutants is related to
the secondary pollutant (O3) and non-gas pollutant
(PM10). O3 is released into the atmosphere as a result
of photochemical oxidation and is the main component
(<1.0) are neglected because of being redundant with of smog (Banan et al. 2013). The concentration of O3,
more important factors. It means multicollinearity was especially in urban and suburban areas, is contributed by
present among original variables. the mono-nitrogen oxide (NOx) (Sadanaga et al. 2012)
In this study, the VFs with absolute values greater and the downwind plume of O3 precursors from the
than 0.75 were set as the selection threshold because industrial activities (Wei et al. 2012; Monteiro et al.
these values are solid and stable, which exhibit moderate 2012). PM10 is the main component of dust fall, which
to strong loadings on the extracted factors. Table 3 and comes from industrial activities and construction
Fig. 4 highlight that five out of the eight air quality sites (Pandey et al. 2008), the transportation ex-
variables satisfy the 0.75 factor loading threshold. haust emission and soil dust (Arsene et al. 2007),
These variables are CH4, NmHC, THC, O3, and PM10. and also open burning activity around the study
These pollutants are then classified as the major contrib- area. According to the Malaysian Ministry of Transport,
uting pollutants at the selected monitoring stations in MOT (2010), the total amount of new registered motor
Malaysia. The VF1 contributes about 32.33 % of the vehicles in Malaysia increased by 4.42 % from 934,367
variation in the air quality data. It has high loadings from in 2004 to 1,160,082 in 2010. Based on this
three variables, which are CH4 (0.949), NmHC (0.79), information, motor vehicles in Malaysia are one of the
and THC (0.99). This factor can be interpreted as a major factors that contribute to the deterioration of at-
measure of gaseous pollutants. Considering the nature mospheric conditions.

Fig. 3 Scree plots for PCA

3 100

2.5
80

2
60

1.5

40
1

20
0.5

0 0
F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7 F8
Water Air Soil Pollut (2014) 225:2063 Page 9 of 14, 2063

3.2 Prediction of the Air Pollution Index Variables (axes D1 and D2: 64.24 %)
Using Multilayered Preceptor Feed-Forward Artificial after Varimax rotation
1
Neural Network
PM10
0.75 O3
NO2 CO
In the rotated PCA, two VFs with eigenvalues greater
0.5
than 1 (>1) were retained and used as an input variable

D2 (31.91 %)
in the MLP-FF-ANN models. These two VFs represent- 0.25 NMHC
THC
ed the air pollutants CH4, NmHC, THC, O3, and PM10. 0
SO2 CH4
Based on factor score coefficients, the factor scores after
-0.25
varimax rotation are then used in MLP-FF-ANN model
B. In the development of MLP-FF-ANN models, 20 -0.5
network structures were tested. The summary of the
-0.75
results for R2 and RMSE of both of the models is
represented in Table 4. Figure 5a, b shows the scatter -1

plot between actual and predicted API for both models -1 -0.75 -0.5 -0.25 0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1

using rotated PCA scores and original raw data as input D1 (32.33 %)
variable data. Seven to eight hidden nodes are consid-
Fig. 4 Factor loading plot after varimax rotation
ered optimum as a further increase as the complexity of
the topology resulted in no significant improvement
over the prediction performance, as given in Fig. 6a, b. model A. Enabling a significant reduction of input data
Using the eight variables as input in MLP-FF-ANN using rotated PCA scores, it shows a predictive power at
model A, the R2 and RMSE values are 0.615 and least as good as the one given by the standard model and
10.026, respectively. By considering VF scores as input it can be concluded that this technique may be seen as a
in MLP-FF-ANN model B, the R2 and RMSE values are
0.618 and 10.017, respectively. It can be observed that Table 4 The prediction performance of R2 and RMSE for MLP-
FF-ANN models A and B using the ANN technique
the prediction performance of the ANN model using
original principal component scores is not significantly Model Hidden node R2 RMSE
different from the rotated PCA models. However, as
rotated PCA models use fewer variables and are far less MLP-FF-ANN model A 1 0.465 11.822
complex, the advantage over MLP-FF-ANN model B is 2 0.509 11.321
more obvious than that of MLP-FF-ANN model A. 3 0.543 10.927
Comparatively, the prediction performance in MLP- 4 0.559 10.723
FF-ANN model B is better than that of MLP-FF-ANN 5 0.591 10.335
6 0.595 10.283
7 0.615 10.026
Table 3 Varifactors af- 8 0.612 10.059
ter varimax rotation and Variable VF1 VF2
the possible source 9 0.575 10.685
category in the study area CO 0.22 0.69 10 0.568 10.756
O3 0.15 0.75 MLP-FF-ANN model B 1 0.450 12.148
PM10 0.12 0.84 2 0.462 11.833
SO2 0.01 0.01 3 0.517 11.386
NO2 0.06 0.66 4 0.538 11.132
CH4 0.95 0.02 5 0.575 10.685
NmHC 0.79 0.26 6 0.587 10.528
THC 0.99 0.06 7 0.606 10.277
Eigenvalue 3.12 2.02 8 0.618 10.017
Variability (%) 32.33 31.91 9 0.597 10.396
Cumulative (%) 32.33 64.24 10 0.587 10.534
2063, Page 10 of 14 Water Air Soil Pollut (2014) 225:2063

(a) (b)
Fig. 5 Scatter plot diagram of the API prediction performance (actual by predicted plot): a original raw data (eight variables) and b rotated
PCA scores

good alternative for establishing ANN models in air
quality prediction compared to others. This application
not only saves time, but it also can save the cost
of monitoring purposes. Therefore, it proved that
the feed-forward ANN architecture is able to predict
API values from all available inputs with negligible
precision.
4 Conclusion
Air quality monitoring programs have generated a huge,
multidimensional and complex data set, which requires
environmetric techniques for data analysis and interpre-
tation of the underlying information. In this study, we
applied PCA to identify the pollution sources for air
quality variation and to determine the optimum number
of sampling parameters in a certain area in Malaysia even
without a field visit. Bartletts test of sphericity revealed
that the air quality variables in the study area were
correlated and not orthogonal. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin
(KMO) test shows the sampling adequacy was greater
than 0.5 and considered that all variables are adequate
and can apply for further analysis. The two VFs generat-
ed by rotated PCA indicate that only five (CH4, NmHC,
THC, O3, and PM10) out of eight parameters were sig-
nificant and responsible for air quality variations in the
study area. Based on the Malaysian Ministry of Transport
data, it is believed that motor vehicles are one of the
major factors that contribute to the formation of these
pollutants. Thus, this study indicated that for the future
and effective management of the Malaysian air quality,
the effort of controlling point and non-point pollution
sources should be prioritized.
The results of factor scores after varimax rotation
were used as input variables in MLP-FF-ANN model
B for API prediction with the R2 value of 0.618, which is
better than the R2 value (0.615) in MLP-FF-ANN model

0.7 14
R Square Performance

RMSE Performance

0.6 12
0.5 10
0.4 8
0.3 Model A 6
Model A
0.2 4
Model B Model B
0.1 2
0 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
No. of hidden nodes No. of hidden nodes
(a) (b)
Fig. 6 ab The performance of R2 and RMSE for MLP-FF-ANN models A and B
Water Air Soil Pollut (2014) 225:2063
A. The reduction of the amount of input data in model B
enables faster predictive outcome without changing sig-
nificantly the predictive power as compared to MLP-FF-
ANN model A. It means that the factor scores after
varimax rotation are more efficient and effective due to
reduction of predictor variables without losing impor-
tant information. Additionally, the combination of factor
scores after varimax rotation and ANN has been
proven as useful tools in air pollution modelling.
Moreover, this technique can be a simple alternative
model to provide reliable estimates of API by using only
limited information.
Acknowledgments The authors acknowledge the Air Quality
Division of the Department of Environment (DOE) under the
Ministry of Natural Resource and Environment, Malaysia, for
giving us permission to utilize air quality data, advice, guidance,
and support for this study.
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