Air Quality Index Analysis of Indian Cities During COVID-19 Using Machine Learning Models: A Comparative Study

Rapid urbanisation has led to degradation in air quality index in past decades caused by pollutants generated by factories, industries and transportation. Designing an automated system for air quality tracking and monitoring is essential for generating awareness. Restrictions imposed by COVID 19 lockdown has resulted in the degradation of pollutants in air and having a great impact on air pollution management. An analysis of air pollution index based on vehicular pollutants and industrial pollutants is done, depicting the most polluted cities in India. Various machine learning models are compared so, as to figure out a better model for classification and analysis. Results delineate that Delhi was one of the most polluted cities before lockdown but shown a tremendous decrease in air pollution index after lockdown. Further boosting models proved to outperform other models in the prediction and forecasting of air quality index.