IJERPH, Vol. 16, Pages 3891: Influencing Factors of PM2.5 Pollution: Disaster Points of Meteorological Factors (International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health)

A chance constrained stochastic Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was developed for investigating the relations between PM2.5 pollution days and meteorological factors and human activities, incorporating with an empirical study for 13 cities in Jiangsu Province (China) to illustrate the model. This approach not only admits random input and output environment, but also allows the evaluation unit to exceed the front edge under the given probability constraint. Moreover, observing the change in outcome variables when a group of explanatory variables are deleted provides an additional strategic technique to measure the effect of the remaining explanatory variables. It is found that: (1) For 2013–2016, the influencing factors of PM2.5 pollution days included wind speed, no precipitation day, relative humidity, population density, construction area, transportation, coal consumption and green coverage rate. In 2016, the number of cities whose PM2.5 pollution days was affected by construction was decreased by three from 2015 but increased according to transportation and energy utilization. (2) The PM2.5 pollution days in southern and central Jiangsu Province were primarily affected by the combined effect of the meteorological factors and social progress, while the northern Jiangsu Province was largely impacted by the social progress. In 2013–2016, at different risk levels, 60% inland cities were of valid stochastic efficiency, while 33% coastal cities were of valid stochastic efficiency. (3) The chance constrained stochastic DEA, which incorporates the data distribution characteristics of meteorological factors and human activities, is valuable for exploring the essential features of data in investigating the influencing factors of PM2.5.