A clustering algorithm for sample data based on environmental pollution characteristics

Environmental pollution has become an issue of serious international concern in recent years. Among the receptor-oriented pollution models, CMB, PMF, UNMIX, and PCA are widely used as source apportionment models. To improve the accuracy of source apportionment and classify the sample data for these models, this study proposes an easy-to-use, high-dimensional EPC algorithm that not only organizes all of the sample data into different groups according to the similarities in pollution characteristics such as pollution sources and concentrations but also simultaneously detects outliers. The main clustering process consists of selecting the first unlabelled point as the cluster centre, then assigning each data point in the sample dataset to its most similar cluster centre according to both the user-defined threshold and the value of similarity function in each iteration, and finally modifying the clusters using a method similar to k-Means. The validity and accuracy of the algorithm are tested using both real and synthetic datasets, which makes the EPC algorithm practical and effective for appropriately classifying sample data for source apportionment models and helpful for better understanding and interpreting the sources of pollution.