Pattern Recognition of Ozone-Depleting Substance Exports in Global Trade Data

TL;DR

This paper presents an unsupervised machine learning framework that analyzes large trade datasets to detect suspicious shipments related to ozone-depleting substances, aiding environmental regulation enforcement.

Contribution

It introduces a novel multi-layered unsupervised approach combining clustering, anomaly detection, and heuristics for trade pattern analysis in environmental monitoring.

Findings

Successfully identified 1,351 price outliers and 1,288 high-priority shipments.

Detected a spike in mega-trades correlating with regulatory impacts.

Validated risk predictors using Explainable AI techniques.

Abstract

New methods are needed to monitor environmental treaties, like the Montreal Protocol, by reviewing large, complex customs datasets. This paper introduces a framework using unsupervised machine learning to systematically detect suspicious trade patterns and highlight activities for review. Our methodology, applied to 100,000 trade records, combines several ML techniques. Unsupervised Clustering (K-Means) discovers natural trade archetypes based on shipment value and weight. Anomaly Detection (Isolation Forest and IQR) identifies rare "mega-trades" and shipments with commercially unusual price-per-kilogram values. This is supplemented by Heuristic Flagging to find tactics like vague shipment descriptions. These layers are combined into a priority score, which successfully identified 1,351 price outliers and 1,288 high-priority shipments for customs review. A key finding is that high-priority commodities show a different and more valuable value-to-weight ratio than general goods. This was validated using Explainable AI (SHAP), which confirmed vague descriptions and high value as the most significant risk predictors. The model's sensitivity was validated by its detection of a massive spike in "mega-trades" in early 2021, correlating directly with the real-world regulatory impact of the US AIM Act. This work presents a repeatable unsupervised learning pipeline to turn raw trade data into prioritized, usable intelligence for regulatory groups.