In recent times, significant research has been carried out into developing and applying
soft computing techniques for modeling hydro-climatic processes such as seepage modeling. It
is necessary to properly model seepage, which creates groundwater sources, to ensure adequate
management of scarce water resources. On the other hand, excessive seepage can threaten the
stability of earthfill dams and infrastructures. Furthermore, it could result in severe soil erosion
and consequently cause environmental damage. Considering the complex and nonlinear nature of
the seepage process, employing soft computing techniques, especially applying pre-post processing
techniques as hybrid methods, such as wavelet analysis, could be appropriate to enhance modeling
efficiency. This review paper summarizes standard soft computing techniques and reviews their
seepage modeling and simulation applications in the last two decades. Accordingly, 48 research
papers from 2002 to 2021 were reviewed. According to the reviewed papers, it could be understood
that regardless of some limitations, soft computing techniques could simulate the seepage successfully
either through groundwater or earthfill dam and hydraulic structures. Moreover, some suggestions
for future research are presented. This review was conducted employing preferred reporting items
for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) method
