Construction of evaluation index system for rural environmental sanitation by affinity propagation clustering and factor loading

Objective To establish an evaluation index system for rural environmental sanitation based on Rural Environmental Sanitation Monitoring Project.

Methods Upon the seven-provinces'(Guangdong, Gansu, Fujian, Hubei, Jiangsu, Sichuan, and Anhui in China) counties(districts) standardized data of monitoring project which was conducted consecutively from 2015 to 2020 converted into initial index groups, the affinity propagation(AP) clustering was applied to complete index clustering. Factor loading was applied to screen indices, and the rationality of the index system was evaluated by the information contribution rate and index simplification rate.

Results The monitoring data of 101 counties(districts) in seven provinces were selected to form a cluster index group containing 70 indices; 9 indices those were independently informative were included directly, while 17 representative indices were screened by AP clustering and factor loading analysis. The index system showed an information contribution rate of 95.63% and an index simplification rate of 62.86%.

Conclusion A total of 26 indices were screened out using the initial index group of monitoring data transformation, AP clustering analysis, and factor loading, and the evaluation index system for rural environmental sanitation based on monitoring project was constructed.