Abstract
Biomass burning, particularly from forest fires and crop residue burning during the dry season, is a major source of particulate pollution across many Asian countries. However, accurately identifying these emissions remains challenging due to uncertainties in burned area estimation and the limited availability of country-specific emission factors. This study quantified the spatiotemporal distribution of emissions from biomass burning using satellite imagery. Burned areas were classified using a random forest (RF) algorithm implemented on the Google Colaboratory (Colab) platform. The RF model showed strong performance, with a kappa coefficient of 0.85 and an average accuracy of 0.81. Emission estimates for the period 2020-2024 showed that the largest burned area, exceeding 74,908.50 km2, occurred in 2023. Particulate matter–bound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PM-bound PAHs) were consistently highest in March, when forest fires are most prevalent. Chrysene (Chr) emerged as a dominant compound during the burning period across all particle size fractions, particularly in the PM1.0-2.5 and PM2.5-10 ranges. In contrast, emissions from crop residue burning remained relatively stable throughout the year, reflecting the multiple harvesting cycles typical of agricultural activities.
Keywords
biomass burning, health risks, nanoparticles, PM0.1, remote sensing
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of Publication
6-1-2026
Volume
5
Issue
2
Publication Title
Journal of Environmental Exposure Assessment
Publisher
OAE Publishing
School
School of Science
Funding Information
This work was financially supported by the Office of the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation, Thailand (Grant No. RGNS 63-253). Additionally, this research was partially supported by JICA-JST SATREPS (Grant No. JPMJSA2102).
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Comments
Paluang, P., Thavorntam, W., Sangkham, S., Suriyawong, P., Samae, H., Chetiyanukornkul, T., Furuuchi, M., & Phairuang, W. (2026). Spatiotemporal PAH patterns in size-fractionated particles (PM>10-PM0.1) from Northern Thailand biomass burning via Sentinel-2. Journal of Environmental Exposure Assessment, 5. https://doi.org/10.20517/jeea.2025.88