Rough Set Applied to Air Pollution: A New Approach to Manage Pollutions in High Risk Rate Industrial Areas

This study presents a rough set application, using together the ideas of classical rough set approach, based on the indiscernibility relation and the dominance-based rough set approach (DRSA), to air micro-pollution management in an industrial site with a high environmental risk rate, such as the industrial area of Syracuse, located in the South of Italy (Sicily). This new data analysis tool has been applied to different decision problems in various fields with considerable success, since it is able to deal both with quantitative and with qualitative data and the results are expressed in terms of decision rules understandable by the decision-maker. In this chapter, some issue related to multi-attribute sorting (i.e. preference-ordered classification) of air pollution risk is presented, considering some meteorological variables, both qualitative and quantitative as attributes, and criteria describing the different objects (pollution occurrences) to be classified, that is, different levels of sulfur oxides (SOx), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and methane (CH4) as pollution indicators. The most significant results obtained from this particular application are presented and discussed: examples of 'if, ... then' decision rules, attribute relevance as output of the data analysis also in terms of exchangeable or indispensable attributes/criteria, of qualitative substitution effect and interaction between them.