A 10 km daily-level ultraviolet radiation predicting dataset based on machine learning models in China from 2005 to 2020

Abstract. Ultraviolet (UV) radiation is closely related to health, but limited measurements hindered further investigation of its health effects in China. Machine learning algorithm has been widely used in predicting environmental factors with high accuracy, but limited studies have done for UV radiation. This study aimed to develop UV radiation prediction model based on random forest method, and predict UV radiation at daily level and 10 km resolution in mainland China in 2005–2020. A random forest model was employed to predict UV radiation by integrating ground UV radiation measurements from monitoring stations and multiple predictors, such as UV radiation data from satellite. Missing data of satellite-based UV radiation was filled by three-day moving average method. The model's performance was evaluated through multiple cross-validation (CV) methods. The overall R² (root mean square error, RMSE) between measured and predicted UV radiation from model development and model 10-fold CV was 0.97 (15.64 W m^-2) and 0.83 (37.44 W m^-2) at daily level, respectively. The model with OMI EDD performed higher predicting accuracy than the one without it. Based on predictions of UV radiation at daily level and 10 km spatial resolution and nearly 100 % spatiotemporal coverage, we found UV radiation increased by 4.20 % while PM_2.5 levels decreased by 48.51 % and O₃ levels rose by 22.70 % in 2013–2020, suggesting a potential correlation among these environmental factors. Uneven spatial distribution of UV radiation was found to be associated with factors such as latitude, elevation, meteorological factors and seasons. The eastern areas of China posed higher risk with both high population density and UV radiation intensity. Based on machine learning algorithm, this study generated a gridded dataset characterized by relatively high precision and extensive spatiotemporal coverage of UV radiation, which demonstrates the spatiotemporal variability of UV radiation levels in China and can facilitate health-related research in the future. This dataset is currently freely available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10884591 (Jiang et al., 2024).