A systematic scrutiny of artificial intelligence-based air pollution prediction techniques, challenges, and viable solutions

Abstract Air is an essential human necessity, and inhaling filthy air poses a significant health risk. One of the most severe hazards to people’s health is air pollution, and appropriate precautions should be taken to monitor and anticipate its quality in advance. Among all the countries, the air quality in India is decreasing daily, which is a matter of concern to the health department. Many studies use machine learning and Deep learning methods to predict atmospheric pollutant levels, prioritizing accuracy over interpretability. Many research studies confuse researchers and readers about how to proceed with further research. This paper aims to give every detail of the considered air pollutants and brief about the techniques used, their advantages, and challenges faced during pollutant prediction, which leads to a better understanding of the techniques before starting any research related to air pollutant prediction. This paper has given numerous prospective questions on air pollution that piqued the study’s interest. This study discussed various machine and deep learning methods and optimization techniques. Despite all the discussed machine learning and deep learning techniques, the paper concluded that more datasets, better learning techniques, and a variety of suggestions would enhance interpretability while maintaining high accuracy for air pollution prediction. The purpose of this review is also to reveal how a family of neural network algorithms has helped researchers across the globe to predict air pollutant(s).