Forecasting Daily River Flow Using an Artificial Flora–Support Vector Machine Hybrid Modeling Approach (Case Study: Karkheh Catchment, Iran)

Abstract

In this study, the hybrid support vector machine–artificial flora algorithm method was developed and the obtained results were compared with those of the support vector–wave vector machine model. Karkheh catchment area was considered as a case study to estimate the flow rate of rivers using the daily discharge statistics taken from hydrometric stations located upstream of the dam in the statistical period of 2008 to 2018. Necessary criteria including coefficient of determination, root mean square error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), and Nash–Sutcliffe coefficient were used to evaluate and compare the models. The results illustrated that the combined structures provided acceptable results in terms of river flow modeling. Also, a comparison of the models based on the evaluation criteria and Taylor’s diagram demonstrated that the proposed hybrid method with the correlation coefficient of R2 = 0.924 to 0.974, RMSE = 0.022 to 0.066 m3/s, MAE = 0.011 to 0.034 m3/s, and Nash-Sutcliffe (NS) coefficient = 0.947 to 0.986 outperformed other methods in terms of estimating the daily flow rates of rivers.