Explainable based approach for the air quality classification on the granular computing rule extraction technique

Air pollution corresponds to one of the considerable challenges and disastrous sides of the environment that causes severe damage to all its biodiversity, including humans. As a result, establishing efficient, reliable, and interpretable methods and techniques to predict and control air quality is a must to preserve the environment and consider the necessary precautions. Most traditional machine learning models often lack transparency, making it challenging to interpret their decisions, especially in vital domains like air pollution. This paper proposes a novel approach that leverages granular computing to extract interpretable rules for air quality classification. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach through experiments on a real-world air quality dataset, showcasing the interpretability of the extracted rules and their accuracy in classifying air quality levels. The output of the proposed GrC model is a tree-like structure minimizing the entropy, allowing an easier interpretation of the classification results. A comparison is conducted with some widely used machine learning algorithms, including decision tree classifier, random forest, and CatBoost. The results indicate that the proposed granular computing rule extraction approach shows a competitive performance according to traditional black-box models in terms of accuracy (79%), transparency and reliability. The developed GrC model and the findings of this study not only contribute to advancing the field of air quality classification but also bear broader implications for environmental research and management for relevant and informed decision-making.