See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/317756056

Runoff Projection under Climate Change Conditions with Data-Mining Methods

Article  in  Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering · August 2017

DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)IR.1943-4774.0001205

CITATIONS READS
6 338

4 authors:

Parisa Sarzaeim Omid Bozorg-Haddad

University of Nebraska at Lincoln University of Tehran
18 PUBLICATIONS   42 CITATIONS    362 PUBLICATIONS   5,702 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Atiyeh Bozorgi Hugo Loaiciga

University of Tehran University of California, Santa Barbara
9 PUBLICATIONS   13 CITATIONS    298 PUBLICATIONS   4,482 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

From Gene To Global Hydroclimatic Controls On Hybrids Performance Predictability View project

Hydropolitics, Water Conflicts and War, Water Power and Hydro-Hegemony, Geopolitics View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Hugo Loaiciga on 03 May 2018.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Runoff Projection under Climate Change
Conditions with Data-Mining Methods
Parisa Sarzaeim 1; Omid Bozorg-Haddad 2; Atiyeh Bozorgi 3; and Hugo A. Loáiciga, F.ASCE 4
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by "University of California, Santa Barbara" on 05/03/18. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.

Abstract: This work proposes data-mining algorithms for runoff projection under climate change conditions. Specifically, genetic program-
ming (GP), artificial neural network (ANN), and support vector machine (SVM) data-mining tools are applied for runoff projection
and their predictive skills are compared by means of several standard indicators of models’ performance. The approach herein implemented
predicts future regional precipitation and temperature with the Hadley Centre Coupled Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Model
version 3 (HadCM3) atmosphere-ocean general circulation model (AOGCM) followed by runoff prediction with GP, ANN, and SVM
in the Aidoghmoush Basin, Iran. This paper’s results demonstrate that SVM outperforms GP and ANN by 7 and 5%, respectively.
DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)IR.1943-4774.0001205. © 2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
Author keywords: Climate change; Genetic programming; Artificial neural network; Support vector machine; Runoff projection.

Introduction Wagesho et al. (2013) reported on the potential effects of climate

The effects of climate change on runoff have been the subject of
various studies, such as runoff prediction under different climate
change scenarios (Xie and Eheart 2003), the study of the current
status and future conditions of water resources in California under
climate change conditions (Hancock et al. 2004), hydrological
modeling to assess the effects of climate change on agricultural
and municipal water sectors in the Conchos Basin in Brazil
(Ingol-Blanco and McKinney 2009), and runoff simulation under
climate change conditions (Ashofteh et al. 2013).
Mimikou et al. (2001) investigated the effects of climate change
on water quantity and quality in the Thessaly region in Greece.
Their results indicated that average annual runoff would decrease
under climate change conditions. Sidhu et al. (2011) investigated
climate change effects on water resources, energy consumption,
and agriculture production in Punjab, India. Their results showed
a decrease in precipitation and increase in temperature, which lead
to a fall in agriculture production. Nazif et al. (2012) researched
climate change effects on runoff from snowmelt in northwestern
Tehran, Iran. Two greenhouse gas emissions scenarios (A2 and
B2) were employed, and after downscaling temperature was pro-
jected to rise, whereas no trend in precipitation was discerned.
1
M.Sc. Student, Dept. of Irrigation and Reclamation Engineering,
Faculty of Agriculture Engineering and Technology, College of Agriculture
and Natural Resources, Univ. of Tehran, Karaj, 14697-13491 Alborz, Iran.
E-mail: Parisa.Sarzaeim@ut.ac.ir
2 effectiveness has been tested in several studies. Genetic program-
Professor, Dept. of Irrigation and Reclamation Engineering, Faculty
of Agriculture Engineering and Technology, College of Agriculture and
Natural Resources, Univ. of Tehran, Karaj, 14697-13491 Alborz, Iran
(corresponding author). E-mail: OBHaddad@ut.ac.ir
3
M.Sc. Student, Dept. of Irrigation and Reclamation Engineering,
Faculty of Agriculture Engineering and Technology, College of Agriculture
and Natural Resources, Univ. of Tehran, Karaj, 14697-13491 Alborz, Iran.
E-mail: Bozorgi.Atiyeh@ut.ac.ir
4
Professor, Dept. of Geography, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara,
CA 93106. E-mail: Hugo.Loaiciga@ucsb.edu
Note. This manuscript was submitted on October 21, 2016; approved on
February 27, 2017; published online on May 20, 2017. Discussion period
open until October 20, 2017; separate discussions must be submitted for
individual papers. This paper is part of the Journal of Irrigation and Drai-
nage Engineering, © ASCE, ISSN 0733-9437.
change on runoff in two basins in Ethiopia. Precipitation and tem-
perature parameters were produced by statistical downscaling and
then the runoff was simulated with the soil and water assessment
tool (SWAT). Their study also showed that the duration of the dry
periods increased in dry months and remained stable in wet months.
Hong et al. (2013) developed a methodology for evaluating the po-
tential impacts of climate change on hydrological parameters and
water resources in the Han River Basin located in South Korea.
Their investigation showed that average low flow would increase,
while average wet flow and normal flow would decrease. Zhang
et al. (2013) considered climate change as an environmental stress
that will affect the management of water resources in the Huaihe
Basin, China.
There are various types of rainfall-runoff models. A conceptual
model such as the Hydrology Engineering Center’s Hydrologic
Modeling System (HEC-HMS) estimates runoff from watershed
and a wide range of climatic and hydrologic data. Anderson et al.
(2002) predicted runoff in Nevada and California with HEC-HMS
for flood management. Another conceptual model is the identifica-
tion of unit hydrographs and component flows from rainfall, evapo-
ration, and streamflow (IHACRES), which has been used by many
authors for runoff estimation based on precipitation and tempera-
ture data. Dye and Croke (2003) applied IHACRES to runoff pre-
diction in two basins in South Africa.
Genetic programming (GP), artificial neural network (ANN),
and support vector machine (SVM) are data-mining models whose
ming applications in water resources include modeling of rainfall-
runoff processes (Whigham and Crapper 2001), calculation of
the optimal operation rules in an aquifer-dam system (Fallah-
Mehdipour et al. 2013), determination of irrigation allocation
policy under climate change (Ashofteh et al. 2014), and modeling
of groundwater (Fallah-Mehdipour et al. 2014). Artificial neural
network has been implemented for forecasting of streamflow of
the Apalachicola River (Huang 2001), rainfall-runoff modeling
in Portugal (Fernandes and Haie 2001), runoff simulation in the
Manitoba region, Canada (Ahmad and Simonovic 2001), predic-
tion of water availability for basin management (Khalil et al.
2005), modeling of the relation between runoff and large-scale
atmospheric processes (Maity and Kumar 2006), forecasting of

© ASCE 04017026-1 J. Irrig. Drain Eng.

J. Irrig. Drain Eng., 2017, 143(8): 04017026

 contaminants in distribution systems (Romero-Gomez et al. 2007),
prediction of quality parameters (Kalin and Isik 2010), the optimal
design of water distribution systems (Andrade et al. 2013), and
solar radiation estimation (Citakoglu 2015). Support vector ma-
chine applications in water resources include identification of op-
timal well locations to monitor aquifers (Asefa et al. 2004), spring
and fall flow forecasting in rivers in the United States (She and
Basketfield 2005), long-term prediction of lake water level (Khan
and Coulibaly 2006), statistical downscaling in tropical regions of
India (Tripathi et al. 2006), and prediction of monthly reservoir
storage by genetic algorithm (GA)–based SVM (Su et al. 2014).
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by "University of California, Santa Barbara" on 05/03/18. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.

Makkeasorn et al. (2008) employed GP and ANN to project

runoff under climate change conditions and compared their effi-
ciencies. Behzad et al. (2009) predicted daily Bakhtiyari River flow
in Iran with SVM, and compared SVM results with those of ANN
and ANN-GA. Their investigation found better accuracy of
SVM than those of ANN and ANN-GA. The comparison of GP,
ANN, and SVM for runoff projection under climate change con-
ditions has been rarely addressed in past studies. This paper applies
GP, ANN and SVM for runoff projection under climate change
conditions and reports a comparison of their predictive accuracies.
Atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) are ap-
plied to project hydrologic variables such as precipitation and tem-
perature under climate change. These models provide large-scale
outputs that must be downscaled for regional applications, runoff
prediction being a case in point. This is followed by implementa-
tion of the GP, ANN, and SVM data-mining methods to project
runoff under climate change conditions. Monthly precipitation
and temperature are inputs to the data-mining methods with which
to project runoff.
Genetic Programming
Genetic programming is an evolutionary algorithm whose princi-
ples are based on the GA (Aboutalebi et al. 2016) and was proposed
by Cramer (1985). Genetic programming relies on tree-structured
search for solutions of various types of problems. The tree structure
of chromosomes in GP renders its search algorithm robust for solv-
ing problems. Numerical and mathematical or logical operators
are considered as decision variables in GP whose goal is finding
a mathematical relation between inputs and output(s). Fig. 1 rep-
resents a mathematical relational function produced by GP.
Genetic programming first defines the set of variables on oper-
ators employed in the search algorithm. These sets are named ter-
minal sets (T) that contain variables, and function sets (F) that
contain operators. Next, GP produces trees by selecting a set of
basic solutions of terminal and function sets. Trees in GP are the
same as chromosomes in the GA. In each iteration of GP, the ob-
jective function is calculated for each tree. Penalties are assigned to
the objective function to avoid answers that would violate con-
straints. Crossover and mutation are implemented in GP to improve
the quality of intermediate solutions iteratively until fulfilling a ter-
minal criterion.
The GP model that is used in this paper is programmed in the
MATLAB software.
Fig. 1. Mathematical relation produced by GP
and testing. After training and identifying the relation between in-
puts and outputs, ANN predicts the corresponding output for a new
input based on the mathematical function identified in the training
step. Artificial neural networks are generally nonlinear mathemati-
cal learning algorithms that attempt to imitate some of the workings
of the human brain. A schematic of the ANN algorithm is portrayed
in Fig. 2. It is seen in Fig. 2 that inputs are employed in the ANN to
make predictions that minimize simulation errors. The ANN pre-
dictions are passed through a nonlinear transfer function and even-
tually the final ANN outputs are achieved. Several algorithms exist
for network training and calculating the predictions weights and
bias. One of them is the Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) algorithm
(Marquardt 1963), which minimizes the sum of the squared errors
of predictions. The ANNs are particularly adept for solving prob-
lems that do not exhibit clear mathematical relation between inputs
and outputs.
This paper predicts runoff under climate change conditions by
means of an ANN model that has two hidden layers, each of which
has two neurons, and is programmed in MATLAB software. The
ANN’s structure is achieved by sensitivity analysis.
Support Vector Machine
Support vector machine is a data-mining method by Vapnik (1995)
that is based on statistical learning theory (Kashif Gill et al. 2007).
Support vector machine performs classification and regression
(Aboutalebi et al. 2015). Guyon et al. (2002) applied SVM as a
classification technique. The regression form of SVM is known

Artificial Neural Network

An ANN is a data-mining algorithm that identifies relations be-
tween input and output variables employing a learning process.
These relations can be complex, yet the ANN processes input
and their corresponding outputs to identify mathematical relations
Fig. 2. Schematic of ANN’s operations
between them. An ANN includes three steps: training, validation,

© ASCE 04017026-2 J. Irrig. Drain Eng.

J. Irrig. Drain Eng., 2017, 143(8): 04017026

 tool and includes data analysis, learning machine, and statistical
training techniques. The kernel function that used in this study
is the radial basis function (RBF), which has a parameter named
γ. The amounts of γ and ζ are achieved by trial and error in order
to find the optimal fitting.

Runoff Projection
This paper’s objective is to estimate runoff under climate change
conditions. Monthly precipitation and temperature inputs for runoff
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by "University of California, Santa Barbara" on 05/03/18. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.

simulation in the period 2026–2039 were generated by statistical

downscaling of the precipitation and temperature projection by
the Hadley Centre Coupled Atmosphere-Ocean General Circula-
tion Model version 3 (HadCM3), driven by the A2 greenhouse
gas (GHG) emissions scenario.
The next step of model development is the creation of the data-
base. Precipitation and temperature are used for estimating runoff,
Fig. 3. Geometric illustration of the first function, which determines and these data are scaled as follows:
the error [variables are presented in Eqs. (4) and (5)]
x − xmin
xscaled ¼ ð6Þ
xmax − xmin
as support vector regression (SVR). Support vector machine is a
where xscaled = scaled data; x = actual data value before scaling; and
tool to similar ANN, but a major difference with ANN is that it
xmin and xmax = minimum and maximum data values before scaling,
does not converge to local optima. SVR is defined by two func-
respectively.
tions. The first function is the error function [Eq. (1)] and the sec-
Selection of suitable inputs to create the model structure is im-
ond function calculates the model output from weight values, input,
portant (Kashif Gill et al. 2007). The correlation criterion is applied
and bias [Eq. (2)]
as a statistical measure to choose the input parameters. The corre-

lation between runoff at time t and precipitation and temperature
0 ifjy − fðxÞj ≤ ε
jy − fðxÞj ¼ ð1Þ with various lag times were analyzed and the parameters related
jy − fðxÞj − ε ¼ ζ otherwise to the lag times that have meaningful correlation were detected.
No statistically meaningful correlation was detected unless be-
fðxÞ ¼ wT · x þ b ð2Þ
tween the precipitation and temperature at time t and t − 1 and
where y = actual output value; fðxÞ = output value calculated by the the observed runoff. Thus the projected runoff at time t is a function
model; ε = sensitivity function; ξ = penalty; w = vector of weights of the precipitation and temperature at times t and t − 1
applied to input x; b = amount of bias of wT · x from the actual Qt ¼ fðPt ; T t ; Pt−1 ; T t−1 Þ ð7Þ
values; and T = transpose operator.
Fig. 3 shows that the first function does not apply a penalty to where Qt = predicted runoff at time t; Pt = precipitation at time t;
the predicted output values if the difference between actual and cal- T t = temperature at time t; Pt−1 = precipitation at time t − 1; T t−1 =
culated values are in the range ðþε; −εÞ. Otherwise a penalty ξ is temperature at time t − 1; f = function that produces output from
applied. input; and t = index counter in month.
SVR models have as objective function the minimization of pre- Then GP, ANN, and SVM are trained with the input data. The
diction errors to increase accuracy and reduce the weight vector w runoff is projected by the IHACRES model. A total of 75% of the
to simplify the model. Therefore, SVR is posed as an optimization data are randomly selected and used for training of the three data-
model according to Eq. (3) mining models. The key components of the predictive approach
Xm implemented in this work are presented in Fig. 4.
1 þ
min kwk2 þ C ðξ −
i − ζi Þ ð3Þ The remaining 25% of the data are used to test the GP, ANN,
2 i¼1 and SVM. The coefficient of determination ðR2 Þ, root-mean-square
subject to error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), and overall index of
model performance (OI) are used as the standard indicators of mod-
ðwT · x þ bÞ − yi < ε þ ζ þ
i i ¼ 1; 2; 3; : : : ; m ð4Þ els’ performance (Bayram and Al-Jibouri 2016). The closer the

yi − ðwT · x þ bÞ ≤ ε þ ζ −
i i ¼ 1; 2; 3; : : : ; m ð5Þ

where C = penalty coefficient; m = number of input data to the

model in the training step; ξ þ −
i and ξ i = penalties for the upper
and lower bounds (þε; −ε); yi = real value of the ith data; and
k k = vectoral magnitude. The optimization problem Eqs. (3)–(5)
is solved with the Lagrange method, the values of w and b are cal-
culated and substituted in Eq. (2) to calculate the SVR model’s out-
put. SVR can also simulate nonlinear data. In such cases, it applies
a transfer (kernel) function that linearizes the nonlinear data.
Runoff projection with the SVM data-mining model was
Fig. 4. Schematic of simulation method by GP, ANN, and SVM
performed with the Tanagra software, which is a data-mining

© ASCE 04017026-3 J. Irrig. Drain Eng.

J. Irrig. Drain Eng., 2017, 143(8): 04017026

 50 values of R2 and OI are to 1 and the closer the values of RMSE and
45 MAE are to 0, the better the model performance, which are pre-

Precipitation (mm)
40 sented in Eqs. (8)–(10)
35 rP ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
T ðQ 2
t¼1 obs;t − Qsim;t Þ
30 RMSE ¼ ð8Þ
T
25
20
1X T
15 MAE ¼ jQ − Qsim;t j ð9Þ
10
n t¼1 obs;t

2031
2032
2033
2026
2027
2028
2029
2030

2034
2035
2036
2037
2038
2039
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by "University of California, Santa Barbara" on 05/03/18. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.

 PT 2

Time (year) 1 RMSE t¼1 ðQobs;t − Qsim;t Þ
OI ¼ 2 − − PT 2
ð10Þ
2 Qobs;max − Qobs;min t¼1 ðQobs;t − Q̄obs Þ
Fig. 5. Average annual precipitation under climate change in the
Aydoghmoush River Basin (data from Ashofteh et al. 2013) where Qobs;t = scaled observed runoff in month t; Qsim;t = scaled
simulated runoff in month t; T = number of total months; Qobs;max
and Qobs;min = maximum and minimum of scaled observed runoff,
17 respectively; and Q̄obs = average of scaled observed runoff.

16
Temperature (˚C)

15 Case Study
14 The Aidoghmoush River Basin is located in eastern Azarbaijan
13 province in Iran. It covers an area of approximately 1,802 km2
and its height is between 1,060 and 2,500 m. Most of the area
12
is semiarid. Average annual precipitation and temperature are
11 336.2 mm and 11.6°C, respectively. The maximum temperature
10 is 31.9°C in July and the minimum temperature is −16.8°C in
2027

2030

2034

2038
2026

2028
2029

2031
2032
2033

2035
2036
2037

2039

February. Ten meteorological stations provided historical precipi-

tation and temperature variables in the basin for the baseline period
Time (year) 1986–2000. The HadCM3 general circulation model driven by the
A2 GHG emissions scenario, using the change factor downscaling
Fig. 6. Average annual temperature under climate change in
method, produced the monthly precipitation and temperature in the
Aydoghmoush River Basin (data from Ashofteh et al. 2013)
14-year period of 2026–2039 in the study region. The average

1.0 1
Scaled simulated runoff

y = 0.7733 x + 0.0354 0.8 y = 0.8382 x + 0.0293

Scaled simulated runoff

0.8
R² = 0.7864 R² = 0.8040
0.6 0.6

0.4 0.4

0.2 0.2

0.0 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
(a) Scaled observed runoff (b) Scaled observed runoff

1
Scaled simulated runoff

0.8 y = 0.8147 x + 0.0216

R² = 0.8487
0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
(c) Scaled observed runoff

Fig. 7. Runoff prediction diagram for (a) GP; (b) ANN; (c) SVM

© ASCE 04017026-4 J. Irrig. Drain Eng.

J. Irrig. Drain Eng., 2017, 143(8): 04017026

 annual precipitation and temperature under climate change condi-
tions are shown in Figs. 5 and 6 (Ashofteh et al. 2013). As shown in
Fig. 6, there is an increasing trend in average annual temperature
under climate change conditions.
Average annual runoff in the Aidoghmoush River Basin is
approximately 170 × 106 m3 and the minimum and maximum
baseline period is 23 and 342 × 106 m3 , respectively. Maximum
monthly average runoff is approximately 55 × 106 m3, which
occurs in April and May.
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by "University of California, Santa Barbara" on 05/03/18. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
Results and Discussion
Recall that 75% of data were used for training and 25% were used
for testing the runoff-prediction model. Variables Pt , T t , Pt−1 , and
T t−1 were inputs and the runoff Qt was the projected variable
[Eq. (7)].
It is seen in Fig. 7 that the R2 values for runoff projections in the
testing step equaled 0.7864, 0.8040, and 0.8487 with the GP, ANN,
and SVM data-mining models, respectively. As was previously

Table 1. Performance Results for Runoff Prediction with Data-Mining Algorithms

Standard indicators of models’ performance
R2 RMSE MAE OI
Model Training Testing Training Testing Training Testing Training Testing
GP 0.8025 0.7864 0.1033 0.0979 0.0640 0.0712 0.8468 0.8260
ANN 0.8907 0.8040 0.0759 0.0935 0.0470 0.0631 0.9073 0.8447
SVM 0.9006 0.8487 0.0887 0.0838 0.0398 0.0580 0.9118 0.8643

70
Observed
60
Simulated
50
Runoff (m 3 /s)

40

30

20

10

0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
(a) Time (month)

70
Observed
60
Simulated
50
Runoff (m 3 /s)

40

30

20

10

0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
(b) Time (month)

70
Observed
60
Simulated
50
Runoff (m 3 /s)

40

30

20

10

0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
(c) Time (month)

Fig. 8. Observed and simulated runoff with (a) GP; (b) ANN; (c) SVM

© ASCE 04017026-5 J. Irrig. Drain Eng.

J. Irrig. Drain Eng., 2017, 143(8): 04017026

 mentioned, the closer the R2 value is to 1, the more accurate is the
model in simulation.
Table 1 lists the runoff- projections results from ANN, GP, and
SVM in the training and testing steps. The R2 , RMSE, MAE, and
OI were used to compare the models’ performances. According to
Table 1, all of the standard indicators of models’ performance in-
dicate that SVM’s performance has better fitness to observed runoff
in general. On the other hand, ANN can simulate observed runoff
better than GP.
The outputs from the data-mining models in the training and
testing steps were descaled to their actual range of values for
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by "University of California, Santa Barbara" on 05/03/18. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
2026–2039.
It is clear from Fig. 8(a), that the GP provides poor runoff pro-
jections in several months. The ANN model produced better results
than the GP, especially for peak runoff values [Fig. 8(b)]. However,
SVM exhibited better performance than GP and ANN in most
months. The graphs in Fig. 8 clearly indicate that SVM has the best
performance in estimating runoff among the three data-mining
models. The values of R2 , RMSE, MAE, and OI listed in Table 1
prove this statement.
According to Fig. 8, in the period of time that starts in the 140th
month to the end, it is clear that the simulated runoff produced by
the ANN and SVM models is very accurate and there is small error
between simulated and observed runoff. Accurate prediction also
occurs under low-flow conditions. It seems these results indicate
that data-mining methods have high acceptable performance in pre-
diction of low flows.
The three data-mining models indicate that annual average run-
off in the Aidoughmoush River Basin is declining. In other words,
it seems there is a decreasing trend in runoff in the future period of
time 2026–2039 under climate change conditions. The data mining
models applied in this paper have identified a runoff trend.
Concluding Remarks
Genetic programming, ANN, and SVM were employed to project
runoff from precipitation and temperature under climate change
conditions. This paper’s results established that the SVM had
approximately 5 and 7% better performance than ANN and GP,
respectively, in projection runoff in the Aidoghmoush River Basin,
Iran. The ANN achieved approximately 2% better performance
than GP. Support vector machine produced better results than
ANN and GP in the training step, and ANN had better performance
than GP in the training step as well. Moreover, this work’s results
indicate that the SVM achieved R2 , RMSE, MAE, and OI values
equal to approximately 0.84, 0.08, 0.06, and 0.86, respectively,
demonstrating its accuracy in predicting runoff under climate
change conditions that outperforms those of other leading data-
mining algorithms, especially in a basin for which there are not
enough hydrological and climate data. Sensitivity analysis was
shown to be helpful in identifying the best structure for data-mining
methods for runoff prediction.
References
Aboutalebi, M., Bozorg-Haddad, O., and Loáiciga, H. A. (2015). “Optimal
monthly reservoir operation rules for hydropower generation derived
with SVR-NSGA II.” J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage., 10.1061
/(ASCE)WR.1943-5452.0000553, 04015029.
Aboutalebi, M., Bozorg-Haddad, O., and Loáiciga, H. A. (2016). “Simu-
lation of methyl tertiary butyl ether concentration in river-reservoir sys-
tems using support vector regression.” J. Irrig. Drain. Eng., 10.1061
/(ASCE)IR.1943-4774.0001007, 04016015.
© ASCE
J. Irrig. Drain Eng., 2017, 143(8): 04017026
Ahmad, S., and Simonovic, S. (2001). “Developing runoff hydrograph us-
ing artificial neural networks.” Proc., World Water and Environmental
Resources Congress, ASCE, Reston, VA.
Anderson, M. L., Chen, Z., Kavvas, M., and Feldman, A. (2002).
“Coupling HEC-HMS with atmospheric models for prediction of water-
shed runoff.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 10.1061/(ASCE)1084-0699(2002)7:
4(312), 312–318.
Andrade, M., Choi, C., Mondaca, M., Lansey, K., and Kang, D. (2013).
“Enhancing artificial neural networks applied to the optimal design
of water distribution systems.” World Environmental and Water
Resources Congress, ASCE, Reston, VA.
Asefa, T., Kemblowski, M. W., Urroz, G., McKee, M., and Khalil, A.
(2004). “Support vectors-based groundwater head observation networks
design.” J. Water Resour. Res., 40(11), W11509.
Ashofteh, P. S., Bozorg-Haddad, O., Akbari-Alashti, H., and Mariño, M. A.
(2014). “Determination of irrigation allocation policy under climate
change by genetic programming.” J. Irrig. Drain. Eng., 10.1061
/(ASCE)IR.1943-4774.0000807, 04014059.
Ashofteh, P. S., Bozorg-Haddad, O., and Mariño, M. A. (2013). “Scenario
assessment of streamflow simulation and its transition probability in
future periods under climate change.” J. Water Res. Manage., 27(1),
255–274.
Bayram, S., and Al-Jibouri, S. (2016). “Efficacy of estimation methods in
forecasting building projects’ costs.” J. Constr. Eng. Manage., 10.1061
/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0001183, 05016012.
Behzad, M., Asghari, K., Eazi, M., and Palhang, M. (2009). “Generaliza-
tion performance of support vector machines and neural networks in
runoff modeling.” Expert Syst. Appl., 36(4), 7624–7629.
Citakoglu, H. (2015). “Comparison of artificial intelligence techniques
via empirical equations for prediction of solar radiation.” J. Comput.
Electron. Agric., 118, 28–37.
Cramer, N. L. (1985). “A representation for the adaptive generation of sim-
ple sequential programs.” Proc., Int. Conf. on Genetic Algorithms and
the Applications, John J. Grefenstette, ed., Carneige-Mellon Univ.,
Pittsburgh, 183–187.
Dye, P. J., and Croke, B. F. W. (2003). “Evaluation of streamflow predic-
tions by the IHACRES rainfall-runoff model in two South African
catchments.” J. Modell. Hydrol. Syst., 18(8–9), 705–712.
Fallah-Mehdipour, E., Bozorg-Haddad, O., and Mariño, M. A. (2013). “Ex-
traction of optimal operation rules in an aquifer-dam system: Genetic
programming approach.” J. Irrig. Drain. Eng., 10.1061/(ASCE)IR
.1943-4774.0000628, 872–879.
Fallah-Mehdipour, E., Bozorg-Haddad, O., and Mariño, M. A. (2014).
“Genetic programming in groundwater modeling.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 10
.1061/(ASCE)HE.1943-5584.0000987, 04014031.
Fernandes, L., and Haie, N. (2001). “Neural networks in water resources
management.” Proc., World Water and Environmental Resources
Congress, ASCE, Reston, VA.
Guyon, L., Weston, J., Barnhill, S., and Vapnik, V. (2002). “Gene selection
for cancer classification using support vector machine.” J. Mach.
Learn., 46(1), 389–422.
Hancock, K., Chung, C., and Mills, W. (2004). “Climate change and its
effects on California water resources.” Proc., Water and Environmental
Resources Management, ASCE, Reston, VA.
Hong, S., Jung, S., Kim, B., and Kim, H. (2013). “The impact assessment
of climate change on the long-term runoff on the Han river in south
Korea based on RCP climate change scenarios.” Proc., World Environ-
mental and Water Resources Congress, ASCE, Reston, VA.
Huang, W. (2001). “Neural network method in real-time forecasting
of Apalachicola river flow.” Proc., World Water and Environmental
Resources Congress, ASCE, Reston, VA.
Ingol-Blanco, E., and McKinney, D. (2009). “Hydrologic modeling
for assessing climate change impacts on the water resources of the
Rio Conchos basin.” Proc., World Environmental and Water Resources
Congress, ASCE, Reston, VA.
Kalin, L., and Isik, S. (2010). “Prediction of water quality parameters using
an artificial neural network model.” Proc., World Environmental and
Water Resources Congress, ASCE, Reston, VA.
Kashif Gill, M., Asefa, T., Kaheil, Y., and Mckee, M. (2007). “Effects of
missing data on performance of learning algorithms for hydrologic
04017026-6 J. Irrig. Drain Eng.
 predictions: Implications to an imputation technique.” J. Water Resour.
Res., 43(7), W07416.
Khalil, A., McKee, M., Kemblowski, M., and Asefa, T. (2005). “Basin
scale water management and forecasting using artificial neural net-
works.” J. Am. Water Res. Assoc., 41(1), 195–208.
Khan, M., and Coulibaly, P. (2006). “Application of support vector machine
in lake water level prediction.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 10.1061/(ASCE)1084-
0699(2006)11:3(199), 199–205.
Maity, R., and Kumar, D. (2006). “Artificial neural network approach for
streamflow forecasting in India using ENSO and EQUINOO.” Proc.,
World Environmental and Water Resources Congress, ASCE, Reston,
VA.
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by "University of California, Santa Barbara" on 05/03/18. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
Makkeasorn, A., Chang, N. B., and Zhou, X. (2008). “Short-term stream-
flow forecasting with global climate change implications—A compar-
ative study between genetic programming and neural network models.”
J. Hydrol., 352(3–4), 336–354.
Marquardt, D. W. (1963). “An algorithm for least-squares estimation of
nonlinear parameters.” J. Soc. Ind. Appl. Mathe., 11(2), 431–441.
MATLAB [Computer software]. MathWorks, Natick, MA.
Mimikou, M., Baltas, E., and Varanou, E. (2001). “Climate change impacts
on water resources: Quantity and quality aspects.” Proc., World Envi-
ronmental and Water Resources Congress, ASCE, Reston, VA.
Nazif, S., Karamouz, M., and Zahmatkesh, Z. (2012). “Climate change im-
pacts on runoff evaluation: A case study.” Proc., World Environmental
and Water Resources Congress, ASCE, Reston, VA.
Romero-Gomez, P., Austin, R. G., and Choi, C. Y. (2007). “Prediction of
contaminants in water distribution systems using artificial neural net-
works.” Proc., World Environmental and Water Resources Congress,
ASCE, Reston, VA.
© ASCE 04017026-7
View publication stats J. Irrig. Drain Eng., 2017, 143(8): 04017026
She, N., and Basketfield, D. (2005). “Long range forecast of streamflow
using support vector machine.” Proc., World Environmental and Water
Resources Congress, ASCE, Reston, VA.
Sidhu, R. S., Vatta, K., and Lall, U. (2011). “Climate change impact and
management strategies for sustainable water-energy-agriculture out-
comes in Punjab.” Indian J. Agric. Econ., 66(3), 328–339.
Su, J., Wang, X., Liang, Y., and Chen, B. (2014). “GA-based support vector
machine model for prediction of monthly reservoir storage.” J. Hydrol.
Eng., 10.1061/(ASCE)HE.1943-5584.0000915, 1430–1437.
Tanagra 1.4 [Computer software]. Ricco Rakotomalala, France.
Tripathi, S., Srinivas, V. V., and Nanjundiah, R. S. (2006). “Downscaling of
precipitation for climate change scenarios: A support vector machine
approach.” J. Hydrol., 330(3–4), 621–640.
Vapnik, V. (1995). The nature of statistical learning theory, Springer,
New York.
Wagesho, N., Jain, M., and Goel, N. (2013). “Effect of climate change
on runoff generation: Application to Rift Valley Lakes basin of
Ethiopia.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 10.1061/(ASCE)HE.1943-5584.0000647,
1048–1063.
Whigham, P. A., and Crapper, P. E. (2001). “Modelling rainfall-runoff us-
ing genetic programming.” Math. Comput. Modell., 33(6–7), 707–721.
Xie, H., and Eheart, J. (2003). “Assessing vulnerability of water resources
to climate change in Midwest.” Proc., World Water and Environmental
Resources Congress, ASCE, Reston, VA.
Zhang, J., et al. (2013). “Using hydrologic simulation to explore the
impacts of climate change on runoff in the Huaihe River Basin of
China.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 10.1061/(ASCE)HE.1943-5584.0000581,
1393–1399.
J. Irrig. Drain Eng.