Weighted Averages and Polynomial Interpolation for PM2.5 Time Series Forecasting

This article describes a novel method for the multi-step forecasting of PM2.5 time series based on weighted averages and polynomial interpolation. Multi-step prediction models enable decision makers to build an understanding of longer future terms than the one-step-ahead prediction models, allowing for more timely decision-making. As the cases for this study, hourly data from three environmental monitoring stations from Ilo City in Southern Peru were selected. The results show average RMSEs of between 1.60 and 9.40 ug/m3 and average MAPEs of between 17.69% and 28.91%. Comparing the results with those derived using the presently implemented benchmark models (such as LSTM, BiLSTM, GRU, BiGRU, and LSTM-ATT) in different prediction horizons, in the majority of environmental monitoring stations, the proposed model outperformed them by between 2.40% and 17.49% in terms of the average MAPE derived. It is concluded that the proposed model constitutes a good alternative for multi-step PM2.5 time series forecasting, presenting similar and superior results to the benchmark models. Aside from the good results, one of the main advantages of the proposed model is that it requires fewer data in comparison with the benchmark models.