Monthly Air Quality Index for China at 1 km Resolution, 2000–2020

China's monthly gridded Air Quality Index (AQI) data from 2000 to 2020, with a spatial resolution of 1 kilometer. The dataset was generated by Qianhui Shi and published on figshare in 2026 to support research linking long-term air pollution exposure to cardiovascular disease risk in older adults. It integrates 18 predictors, including meteorological, vegetation, and anthropogenic factors, and was produced using a Random Forest model validated with an R² of 0.83.

Use Cases

• Modeling long-term air pollution exposure for cardiovascular disease studies based on the AQI data.
• Analyzing fine-scale spatial and temporal variations in air quality across China based on the 1 km gridded data.
• Linking environmental exposure to individual health outcomes in cohort studies like CHARLS based on the precise spatiotemporal data.
• Comparing air quality trends over two decades across different regions of China based on the monthly time series.

Strengths

• Covers a 21-year period (2000–2020) with monthly temporal granularity.
• High spatial resolution of 1 km for the entire territory of China.
• Model performance validated with an R² of 0.83, RMSE of 10.25, and MAE of 9.03.
• Integrates 18 predictors from diverse sources, including meteorological, vegetation, and anthropogenic factors.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data is stored in 252 NetCDF files (one per month), which may require specialized software for access and analysis.

Provenance

Source

Generated by Qianhui Shi, published on figshare.

Collection Method

Produced using a Random Forest model trained on 18 predictors and validated via 10-fold geographic stratified cross-validation.

Time Range

2000 to 2020

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-13 00:52:18; freshness should be verified.

Geography

China (80°E–135°E, 15°N–53°N)