Performance of artificial neural network and regression techniques for rainfall-runoff prediction

Abstract

Different types of methods have been used in runoff prediction involving conceptualand empirical models. Nevertheless, none of these methods can be considered as a single superior model. Owing to the complexity of the hydrological process, the accurate runoff is difficult to be predicted using the linear recurrence relations or physically based watershed. The linear recurrence relation model does not attempt to take into account the nonlinear dynamic of the hydrological process. The Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is a new technique with a flexible mathematical structure that is capable of identifying complex non-linear relationships between input and output data when compared to other classical modelling techniques. Therefore, the present study aims to utilize an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to predict the rainfall-runoff relationship in a catchment area located in a Tanakami region of Japan. The study illustrates the applications of the feed forward back propagation with hyperbolic tangent neurons in the hidden layer and linear neuron in the output layer is used for rainfall prediction. To evaluate the performance of the proposed model, three statistical indexes were used, namely; Correlation coefficient (R), mean square error (MSE) and correlation of determination (R2). The results showed that the feed forward back propagation Neural Network (ANN) can describe the behaviour of rainfall-runoff relation more accurately than the classical regression model. Key words: Rainfall-runoff, artificial neural network, linear regression.