APPLICABILITY OF ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORK MODEL FOR SIMULATION OF MONTHLY RUNOFF IN COMPARISON WITH SOM OTHER TRADITIONAL MODELS

Abstract

Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model along with Back Propagation Algorithm (BPA) has been applied in many fields, especially in hydrology and water resources management to simulate or forecast rainfall runoff process, discharge and water level - time series, and other hydrological variables. Several researches have recently been focusing to compare the applicability of ANN model with other theory-driven and data-driven approaches. The comparison of ANN with M5 model trees for rainfall-runoff forecasting, with ARMAX models for deriving flow series, with AR models and regression models for forecasting and estimating daily river flows have been carried out. The better results that were implemented by ANN model have been concluded. So, this research trend is continued for the comparison of ANN model with Tank, Harmonic, Thomas and Fiering models in simulation of the monthly runoffs at Dong Nai river basin, Viet Nam. The results proved ANN being the best choice among these models, if suitable and enough data sources were available.