---
license: cc-by-4.0
task_categories:
  - time-series-forecasting
  - tabular-regression
tags:
  - air-quality
  - pm25
  - forecasting
  - environment
  - europe
  - eea
language:
  - en
pretty_name: EEA PM2.5 Air Quality Dataset (Europe)
size_categories:
  - 1M<n<10M
---

# EEA PM2.5 Air Quality Dataset

Hourly air quality measurements from the European Environment Agency (EEA) for PM2.5 forecasting research.

## Dataset Description

This dataset contains hourly air pollutant concentrations and meteorological data from monitoring stations across 5 European cities, prepared for machine learning forecasting tasks.

### Data Sources
- **Air Quality**: European Environment Agency (EEA) Air Quality Portal
- **Weather**: Open-Meteo Archive API

### Coverage
- **Time Period**: 2018-01-08 to 2024-12-31
- **Countries**: 5 (AT, BE, ES, FI, FR)
- **Cities**: Wien, Paris, Madrid, Antwerpen, Helsinki
- **Monitoring Stations**: 38
- **Total Records**: 1,945,153 hourly observations
- **Total Features**: 81 columns

## Dataset Files

### Raw Data (Parquet)
| File | Description |
|------|-------------|
| `PM2.5.parquet` | PM2.5 concentrations (all sites) |
| `PM2.5_filtered.parquet` | PM2.5 (filtered to quality sites) |
| `NO2.parquet` | NO2 concentrations (all sites) |
| `NO2_filtered.parquet` | NO2 (filtered sites) |
| `PM10.parquet` | PM10 concentrations (all sites) |
| `PM10_filtered.parquet` | PM10 (filtered sites) |

### ML-Ready Dataset
| File | Description | Size |
|------|-------------|------|
| `ml_ready_dataset_full_realistic.csv` | Feature-engineered dataset | ~1.6 GB |

## Features (81 columns)

### Metadata
- `Start`: Original timestamp
- `Country`: Country code (AT, BE, ES, FI, FR)
- `SiteNumber`: Station identifier
- `dt_utc`: Timestamp in UTC
- `dt_local`: Timestamp in local timezone

### Site Metadata (Geographic)
- `Latitude`, `Longitude`, `Altitude`

### Station Type (One-Hot Encoded)
- `StationType_background`
- `StationType_industrial`
- `StationType_traffic`

### Station Area (One-Hot Encoded)
- `StationArea_rural`
- `StationArea_rural-nearcity`
- `StationArea_suburban`
- `StationArea_urban`

### Weather Features (Open-Meteo API)
- `temperature_2m`: Air temperature at 2m (°C)
- `relative_humidity_2m`: Relative humidity (%)
- `dew_point_2m`: Dew point temperature (°C)
- `wind_u`: East-west wind component (m/s)
- `wind_v`: North-south wind component (m/s)
- `precipitation`: Hourly precipitation (mm)
- `surface_pressure`: Surface pressure (hPa)

### Target Variable
- `PM2.5`: Current PM2.5 concentration (µg/m³)

### Pollutant Features
- `NO2`: Current NO2 concentration
- `PM10`: Current PM10 concentration

### Temporal Features
- `hour`, `day_of_week`, `day_of_month`, `month`, `year`
- `is_weekend`: Weekend indicator (0/1)
- `season`: Season indicator
- `hour_sin`, `hour_cos`: Cyclical hour encoding
- `month_sin`, `month_cos`: Cyclical month encoding

### Lag Features (1h, 2h, 3h, 6h, 12h, 24h, 168h)
- `PM2.5_lag_1h`, `PM2.5_lag_2h`, `PM2.5_lag_3h`, `PM2.5_lag_6h`, `PM2.5_lag_12h`, `PM2.5_lag_24h`, `PM2.5_lag_168h`
- `NO2_lag_1h`, `NO2_lag_2h`, `NO2_lag_3h`, `NO2_lag_6h`, `NO2_lag_12h`, `NO2_lag_24h`, `NO2_lag_168h`
- `PM10_lag_1h`, `PM10_lag_2h`, `PM10_lag_3h`, `PM10_lag_6h`, `PM10_lag_12h`, `PM10_lag_24h`, `PM10_lag_168h`

### Rolling Mean Features (3h, 6h, 12h, 24h windows)
- `PM2.5_rolling_mean_3h`, `PM2.5_rolling_mean_6h`, `PM2.5_rolling_mean_12h`, `PM2.5_rolling_mean_24h`
- `NO2_rolling_mean_3h`, `NO2_rolling_mean_6h`, `NO2_rolling_mean_12h`, `NO2_rolling_mean_24h`
- `PM10_rolling_mean_3h`, `PM10_rolling_mean_6h`, `PM10_rolling_mean_12h`, `PM10_rolling_mean_24h`

### Rolling Std Features (3h, 6h, 12h, 24h windows)
- `PM2.5_rolling_std_3h`, `PM2.5_rolling_std_6h`, `PM2.5_rolling_std_12h`, `PM2.5_rolling_std_24h`
- `NO2_rolling_std_3h`, `NO2_rolling_std_6h`, `NO2_rolling_std_12h`, `NO2_rolling_std_24h`
- `PM10_rolling_std_3h`, `PM10_rolling_std_6h`, `PM10_rolling_std_12h`, `PM10_rolling_std_24h`

## Data Quality

### Filtering Criteria
Stations included meet these quality thresholds:
- **Train completeness**: ≥50% (2018-2022)
- **Test completeness**: ≥50% (2023-2024)
- **Maximum gap**: ≤168 hours

### Preprocessing
- Sentinel values (<0) replaced with NaN
- Time-based lag/rolling features (handles data gaps correctly)
- Weather data merged by nearest hour
- Local timezone conversion for temporal features
- **No missing values** in final dataset

## Stations by Country

| Country | City | Stations |
|---------|------|----------|
| AT | Wien | 10 |
| BE | Antwerpen | 8 |
| ES | Madrid | 9 |
| FI | Helsinki | 5 |
| FR | Paris | 6 |

## Usage

### Load with Pandas

```python
import pandas as pd

# Load ML-ready dataset
df = pd.read_csv("ml_ready_dataset_full_realistic.csv")

# Train/test split (temporal)
train = df[df['dt_utc'] < '2023-01-01']
test = df[df['dt_utc'] >= '2023-01-01']
```

### Load with Hugging Face Datasets

```python
from datasets import load_dataset

dataset = load_dataset("cosuleabianca/eea-pm25-dataset")
```

### Load Raw Parquet Files

```python
import pandas as pd

pm25 = pd.read_parquet("PM2.5_filtered.parquet")
no2 = pd.read_parquet("NO2_filtered.parquet")
```

## Train/Test Split

| Split | Period | Purpose |
|-------|--------|---------|
| Train | 2018-01-08 to 2022-12-31 | Model training |
| Test | 2023-01-01 to 2024-12-31 | Evaluation |

This temporal split simulates real-world forecasting scenarios.

## Regenerating the Dataset

If you prefer to regenerate from raw EEA data:

```bash
# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/CosuleaBianca/eea-pm25
cd eea-pm25

# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Run data pipeline
python dataset_build/src/download_pollutants.py
python dataset_build/src/filter_pm25_sites.py
python dataset_build/src/process_data.py
python dataset_build/src/prepare_ml_dataset.py
python dataset_build/src/coverage_only_v6.py
python dataset_build/src/dataset_full_realistic_v6.py
```

## Citation

If you use this dataset, please cite:

```bibtex
@misc{eea-pm25-dataset,
  author = {Chisilev Bianca-Iuliana},
  title = {EEA PM2.5 Air Quality Dataset for Europe},
  year = {2025},
  publisher = {Hugging Face},
  url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/cosuleabianca/eea-pm25-dataset}
}
```

## Links

- **GitHub Repository**: [Github repository](https://github.com/CosuleaBianca/eea-pm25)
- **Pre-trained Models**: [Models](https://huggingface.co/cosuleabianca/eea-pm25)

## License

CC BY 4.0 - You are free to share and adapt, with attribution.

Original data from the European Environment Agency is provided under the EEA standard reuse policy.