Improving Ann‐Based Short‐Term and Long‐Term Seasonal River Flow Forecasting with Signal Processing Techniques

Abstract

AbstractOne of the key elements in achieving sustainable water resources and environmental management is forecasting the future condition of the surface water resources. In this study, the performance of a river flow forecasting model is improved when different input combinations and signal processing techniques are applied on multi‐layer backpropagation neural networks. Haar, Coiflet and Daubechies wavelet analysis are coupled with backpropagation neural networks model to develop hybrid wavelet neural networks models. Different models with different input selections and structures are developed for daily, weekly and monthly river flow forecasting in Ellen Brook River, Western Australia. Comparison of the performance of the hybrid approach with that of the original neural networks indicates that the hybrid models produce significantly better results. The improvement is more substantial for peak values and longer‐term forecasting, in which the Nash–Sutcliffe coefficient of efficiency for monthly river flow forecasting is improved from 0.63 to 0.89 in this study. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.