# AirRadar: Inferring Nationwide Air Quality in China with Deep Neural Networks

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.13141 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.13141/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 40 of its 92 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 22 Jan 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 40)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [Semi-Supervised Classification with Graph Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.02907/) (2016)
- [Masked Autoencoders Are Scalable Vision Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.06377/) (2021)
- [Fourier Neural Operator for Parametric Partial Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.08895/) (2020)
- [An Empirical Evaluation of Generic Convolutional and Recurrent Networks for Sequence Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.01271/) (2018)
- [Variational Graph Auto-Encoders](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.07308/) (2016)
- [Spatio-Temporal Graph Convolutional Networks: A Deep Learning Framework for Traffic Forecasting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1709.04875/) (2017)
- [Multi-Scale Context Aggregation by Dilated Convolutions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.07122/) (2015)
- [Graph WaveNet for Deep Spatial-Temporal Graph Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.00121/) (2019)
- [Neural Operator: Graph Kernel Network for Partial Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.03485/) (2020)
- [Generating Sequences With Recurrent Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1308.0850/) (2013)
- [Adaptive Graph Convolutional Recurrent Network for Traffic Forecasting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.02842/) (2020)
- [GMAN: A Graph Multi-Attention Network for Traffic Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.08415/) (2019)
- [Deep Spatio-Temporal Residual Networks for Citywide Crowd Flows Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.00081/) (2016)
- [Adaptive Fourier Neural Operators: Efficient Token Mixers for Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.13587/) (2021)
- [Spatial-Temporal Graph ODE Networks for Traffic Flow Forecasting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.12931/) (2021)
- [Deep Learning for Spatio-Temporal Data Mining: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.04928/) (2019)
- [Spatio-Temporal Graph Neural Networks for Predictive Learning in Urban Computing: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.14483/) (2023)
- [Causal Attention for Interpretable and Generalizable Graph Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.15089/) (2021)
- [DL-Traff: Survey and Benchmark of Deep Learning Models for Urban Traffic Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.09091/) (2021)
- [AirFormer: Predicting Nationwide Air Quality in China with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.15979/) (2022)
- [Sequential Neural Processes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.10264/) (2019)
- [Deciphering Spatio-Temporal Graph Forecasting: A Causal Lens and Treatment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.13378/) (2023)
- [A Survey on Trajectory Data Management, Analytics, and Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.11547/) (2020)
- [Predicting Citywide Crowd Flows in Irregular Regions Using Multi-View Graph Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.07789/) (2019)
- [Learning Graph Representations with Embedding Propagation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.03059/) (2017)
- [Group-Aware Graph Neural Network for Nationwide City Air Quality Forecasting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.12238/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Learning to Factorize and Adapt: A Versatile Approach Toward Universal Spatio-Temporal Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.12083/) (2026)
- [Breaking the Regional Barrier: Inductive Semantic Topology Learning for Worldwide Air Quality Forecasting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.21899/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Monitoring real-time air quality is essential for safeguarding public health and fostering social progress. However, the widespread deployment of air quality monitoring stations is constrained by their significant costs. To address this limitation, we introduce AirRadar, a deep neural network designed to accurately infer real-time air quality in locations lacking monitoring stations by utilizing data from existing ones. By leveraging learnable mask tokens, AirRadar reconstructs air quality features in unmonitored regions. Specifically, it operates in two stages: first capturing spatial correlations and then adjusting for distribution shifts. We validate AirRadar's efficacy using a year-long dataset from 1,085 monitoring stations across China, demonstrating its superiority over multiple baselines, even with varying degrees of unobserved data. The source code can be accessed at https://github.com/CityMind-Lab/AirRadar.