A. Salim Bawazir

Forecasting Monthly Streamflow of Spring-Summer Runoff Season in Rio Grande Headwaters Basin Using Stochastic Hybrid Modeling Approach

Monthly streamflow forecasting during spring-summer runoff season using snow telemetry (SNOTEL) precipitation and snow water equivalent (SWE) as predictors in the Rio Grande Headwaters Basin in Colorado was investigated. The transfer-function noise (TFN) models with SNOTEL precipitation input were built for monthly streamflow. Then, one-month-ahead forecasts of TFN models for the spring-summer runoff season were modified with SWE using an artificial neural networks (ANN) technique denoted in this study as hybrid TFN+ANN. The results indicated that the hybrid TFN+ANN approach not only demonstrated better generalization capability but also improved one-month-ahead forecast accuracy significantly when compared with single TFN and ANN models. The normalized root mean squared errors (NRMSE) of one-month-ahead forecasts of TFN, ANN, and TFN+ANN approaches for spring-summer runoff season were 0.38, 0.30, and 0.25. These findings accentuate that the presented stochastic hybrid modeling approach is an advantageous...

Infilling Missing Daily Evapotranspiration Data Using Neural Networks

This study used artificial neural networks (ANNs) computing technique for infilling missing daily saltcedar evapotranspiration (ET) as measured by the eddy-covariance method. The study site was at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in the Middle Rio Grande Valley, New Mexico. Data was collected from 2001 to 2003. Several ANN models were evaluated for infilling of different combinations of missing data percentages and different gap sizes. The ANN model using daily maximum and minimum temperature, daily solar radiation, day of the year, and the calendar year as inputs showed the best estimation performance. Results showed coefficient of determination ( R2 ) of 0.96, root-mean-square error (RMSE) of 0.4 mm/day for 10% missing data and a maximum of half-month gap size data set. Missing data greater than 30% and maximum data gap size greater than 3 months resulted in R2 less than 0.90 and RMSE greater than 0.6 mm/day. The results from this study suggest that infilling of daily saltcedar ET using ANN an...

A typology of different development and testing options for symbolic regression modelling of measured and calculated datasets

Data-driven modelling is used to develop two alternative types of predictive environmental model: a simulator, a model of a real-world process developed from either a conceptual understanding of physical relations and/or using measured records, and an emulator, an imitator of some other model developed on predicted outputs calculated by that source model. A simple four-way typology called Emulation Simulation Typology (EST) is proposed that distinguishes between (i) model type and (ii) different uses of model development period and model test period datasets. To address the question of to what extent simulator and emulator solutions might be considered interchangeable i.e. provide similar levels of output accuracy when tested on data different from that used in their development, a pair of counterpart pan evaporation models was created using symbolic regression. Each model type delivered similar levels of predictive skill to that other of published solutions. Input-output sensitivity analysis of the two different model types likewise confirmed two very similar underlying response functions. This study demonstrates that the type and quality of data on which a model is tested, has a greater influence on model accuracy assessment, than the type and quality of data on which a model is developed, providing that the development record is sufficiently representative of the conceptual underpinnings of the system being examined. Thus, previously reported substantial disparities occurring in goodness-of-fit statistics for pan evaporation models are most likely explained by the use of either measured or calculated data to test particular models, where lower scores do not necessarily represent major deficiencies in the solution itself.