Flood forecasting based on an artificial neural network scheme

International audienceNowadays, floods have become the widest global environmental and economic hazard in many countries, causing huge loss of lives and materials damages. It is, therefore, necessary to build an efficient flood forecasting system. The physical-based flood forecasting methods have indeed proven to be limited and ineffective. In most cases, they are only applicable under certain conditions. Indeed, some methods do not take into account all the parameters involved in the flood modeling, and these parameters can vary along a channel, which results in obtaining forecasted discharges very different from observed discharges. While using machine learning tools, especially artificial neural networks schemes appears to be an alternative. However, the performance of forecasting models, as well as a minimum error of prediction, is very interesting and challenging issues. In this paper, we used the multilayer perceptron in order to design a flood forecasting model and used discharge as input–output variables. The designed model has been tested upon intensive experiments and the results showed the effectiveness of our proposal with a good forecasting capacity

A comparative study of Machine Learning and Deep Learning methods for flood forecasting in the Far-North region, Cameroon

Flood crises are the consequence of climate change and global warming, which lead to an increase in the frequency and intensity of heavy rainfall. Floods are, and remain, natural disasters that result in huge loss of lives and material damage. Flood risks threaten all countries of the globe in general. The Far-North region of Cameroon has suffered of flood crises on several occasions, resulting in significant loss of human lives, infrastructural and socio-economic damage, with the destruction of homes, crops and grazing areas, and the halting of economic activities. The models used for flood forecasting in this region are generally physical-based, and produce unsatisfactory results. The use of artificial intelligence based methods for flood forecasting in order to limit its consequences is a way to be explored in the Far-North region of Cameroon. The aims of the present research work is to design and compare the performance of Machine Learning and Deep Learning based models such as one dimensional Convolutional Neural Network, Long and Short Term Memory and Multi Layer Perceptron for short-term and long-term flood forecasting in the Far-North region of Cameroon. The models designed take as input the temperature and rainfall time series recorded in this region. Performance criteria used for evaluating models are Nash–Sutcliffe Efficiency, Percent Bias, Coefficient of Determination and Root Mean Squared Error. As the results of the design and performance comparison of the models, the best model for short-term flood forecasting is the LSTM model , and the best model for long-term flood forecasting is still the LSTM model. The best models obtained from the comparisons have satisfactory performance and good generalization capabilities, as reflected by the performance criteria. The results of our research work can be used for implementation of floods warning systems and for definition of an effective and efficient flood risk management policies in order to make the Far-North region of Cameroon more resilient to flood crises