SINTEZA 2020 INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND DATA RELATED RESEARCH 41 Svetlana Stanišić 1 *, Mirjana Perišić 1,2 , Andreja Stojić 1,2 1 Singidunum University, Belgrade, Serbia 2 Environmental Laboratory, Institute of Physics Belgrade, National Institute of the Republic of Serbia, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia Correspondence: Svetlana Stanišić e-mail: sstanisic@singidunum.ac.rs THE USE OF INNOVATIVE METHODOLOGY FOR THE CHARACTERIZATION OF BENZENE, TOLUENE, ETHYLBENZENE AND XYLENE SOURCES IN THE BELGRADE AREA Abstract: The growth of urban population, economic development, urbanization and transport have a strong impact on environmental pollution. The increase in air pollutant concentrations over the last few decades has been in focus of contemporary science and research mainly for its adverse effects on public health, environment and climate change. In this paper, we are using the in- novative integrated methodology for spatio-temporal air pollution modeling, based on receptor-oriented air circulation modeling and artificial intelligence implemented through machine learning methods for detailed characteriza- tion of toxic, mutagenic and carcinogenic representatives of volatile organic species – benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene, in the Belgrade area. Also, the study evaluates the possibilities of spatio-temporal forecast based on the integrated methodology. The results suggest that temperature and wind speed represent the main parameters which govern the spatio-temporal distribution of benzene, while the impact of other factors shows significant variations depending on the characteristics of receptor location. Keywords: Keywords – BTEX, artificial intelligence, machine learning, volatile organic compounds. 1. INTRODUCTION Ambient air pollution accounts for an estimated 4.2 million deaths per year due to cardiovascular, malignant and chronic respiratory diseases [1]. Around 91% of the world’s population lives in places where air pollution levels exceed World Health Organization limits [2]. Holgate (2017) emphasizes that 40,000 excess deaths in the UK annually can be associated with low air quality, and society would be much more aware of its signif- cance if this mortality was the consequence of drinking polluted water [3]. Among the air pollutants that are of interest for current and future research due to their detrimental efects on both human health and the environment are volatile organic compounds (VOCs), a heterogeneous Sinteza 2020 submit your manuscript | sinteza.singidunum.ac.rs DOI: 10.15308/Sinteza-2020-41-45 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ATLAS SESSION