Journal of Hydrology 564 (2018) 266–282

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Journal of Hydrology
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Research papers

Simulation and forecasting of streamflows using machine learning models T

coupled with base flow separation
⁎
Hakan Tongala, , Martijn J. Booijb
a
Department of Civil Engineering, Engineering Faculty, Süleyman Demirel University, 32260 Isparta, Turkey
b
Department of Water Engineering and Management, Faculty of Engineering Technology, University of Twente, Enschede, the Netherlands

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

This manuscript was handled by G. Syme, Efficient simulation of rainfall-runoff relationships is one of the most complex problems owing to the high
Editor-in-Chief, with the assistance of Bellie number of interrelated hydrological processes. It is well-known that machine learning models could fail in
Sivakumar, Associate Editor simulating streamflows from only meteorological variables in the absence of antecedent streamflow values. The
Keywords: main reason for this could be low and lagged relationships between streamflow and meteorological variables. To
Simulation overcome this inefficiency, for the first time, we developed a simulation framework by coupling a base flow
Forecasting separation method to three machine learning methods. It was demonstrated that separating streamflow into
Base flow separation different components such as base flow and surface flow can be useful for improving simulation and forecasting
Support vector regression
capabilities of machine learning models. We simulated streamflow in four rivers in the United States with
Artificial neural networks
Support Vector Regression (SVR), Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) and Random Forest (RF) as a function of
Random forest
precipitation (P), temperature (T) and potential evapotranspiration (PET). We concluded that the base flow
separation method improved the simulation performances of the machine learning models to a certain degree.
Apart from the simulation scheme, we also employed a forecasting scheme by using the antecedent observed
discharge values in addition to P, T, and PET. We discussed performances of models in simulation and fore-
casting of streamflow regarding model types, input structures and catchment dynamics in detail.

1. Introduction
Streamflow forecasting and simulation is fundamental for wa-
tershed planning and sustainable water resources management. In the
past decades, impacts of climate change and anthropogenic activities
have possibly changed the timing, frequency and intensity of extreme
events, and it is expected that this will continue in the future (Demirel
et al., 2013; Halgamuge and Nirmalathas, 2017; Lansigan, 2009; Naidu
et al., 2012; Sang et al., 2014; Spinoni et al., 2017; Tian et al., 2014;
Vormoor et al., 2016; Yang et al., 2018). Hydrological models can be
used to investigate the impacts of climate change and human activities
on hydrological processes. Data-driven models can be used for this
purpose. These models do not explicitly incorporate hydrological pro-
cesses (Shortridge et al., 2016) and therefore should be used with care
for conditions outside the observed domain. However, some studies
showed that data-driven models can be practical, easy to use, relatively
straightforward, can give insight into the governing dynamics and
eliminate some deficiencies of other types of models (Booker and
Woods, 2014; Han et al., 2007; Humphrey et al., 2016; Masselot et al.,
2016; Noori and Kalin, 2016). Therefore, machine learning algorithms
(i.e. data-driven models) such as Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) and
Support Vector Machines and Regressions (SVM and SVR) have re-
ceived increasing attention in hydrology for instance for rainfall-runoff
modelling (Hosseini and Mahjouri, 2016; Lin and Chen, 2004; Sudheer
et al., 2002; Tiwari and Chatterjee, 2010a; Wu and Chau, 2011; Young
et al., 2017), groundwater level forecasting (Chang et al., 2015;
Ebrahimi and Rajaee, 2017; Gholami et al., 2015; Mukherjee and
Ramachandran, 2018; Suryanarayana et al., 2014) and rainfall fore-
casting (Feng et al., 2015; Hong and Pai, 2007; Lin et al., 2009; Lin and
Jhong, 2015; Nikam and Gupta, 2014; Pai and Hong, 2007; Yu et al.,
2017). We have employed ANNs and SVR in this study since the former
one is one of the most robust approaches for hydrological forecasting
that recognizes the nonlinear relationship between the input and output
(Adamowski and Sun, 2010; Badrzadeh et al., 2016; Fotovatikhah et al.,
2018). Moreover, several studies indicated that SVR is more powerful
than ANN in capturing nonlinear hydrological relationships due to the
employed structural risk minimization contrary to the empirical risk
minimization error (Maity et al., 2010; Wang et al., 2009). There are
several studies indicating that ANN and SVR can be preferred over
other machine learning models such as genetic programming and the

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: hakantongal@sdu.edu.tr (H. Tongal), m.j.booij@utwente.nl (M.J. Booij).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2018.07.004
Received 9 April 2018; Received in revised form 5 June 2018; Accepted 2 July 2018
Available online 05 July 2018
0022-1694/ © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
H. Tongal, M.J. Booij
adaptive neural-based fuzzy inference system (Wang et al., 2009) and
they have been shown to give promising results in many fields of hy-
drology and water resources research (Aqil et al., 2007a). Therefore, we
have employed ANN and SVR for the modeling aim in this study.
Recently, other data-driven techniques which are variations of de-
cision trees such as Classification And Regression Tree—CART, M5
model tree and random forest have attracted the attention of re-
searchers. Among others, Shortridge et al. (2016) compared several
machine learning algorithms such as generalized additive models,
multivariate adaptive regression splines, artificial neural networks,
random forest and M5 cubist models in rainfall-runoff simulation for
five rivers in the Lake Tana basin, Ethiopia. They concluded that the
machine learning algorithms reduced the errors in simulation in com-
parison to the physically-based models developed for the considered
basins. Kim and Pachepsky (2010) showed that an ANN model coupled
with regression trees could be helpful in the reconstruction of missing
rainfall data and could enhance streamflow predictions of a physically-
based model—the Soil and Water Assessment Tool. Kumar et al. (2016)
forecasted suspended sediment as a function of hydro-meteorological
variables such as rainfall and streamflow. They compared several ma-
chine learning models including least square–SVR, ANN, CART and M5
model tree and found that machine learning models successfully fore-
casted suspended sediment. Above studies indicated that machine
learning models could efficiently be used for hydrological applications,
especially in a forecasting context. It is reported that the random forest
model produces promising results in comparison to ANN and SVR
(Breiman, 2001; Liaw and Wiener, 2002). This is mainly because the
random forest model does not have an over-fitting problem with an
ensemble of permutations (Leasure et al., 2016). The model also cal-
culates importance of variables among predictor variables, and conse-
quently, it is much more interpretable than methods such as ANNs and
SVR (Baudron et al., 2013). However, to the best of our knowledge,
there is no study on the comparison of hydrologic forecasting and si-
mulation performances of RF, ANN, and SVR. This will eventually
provide additional insights into the performances of the models in the
perspective of water resources planning and management.
To this end, it is essential to discriminate between the terms fore-
casting and simulation. As indicated by Klemeš (1986), a hydrological
simulation model can be defined as a mathematical function between the
output of a hydrological system (e.g. discharge) and other hydro-cli-
matic variables such as precipitation and temperature. However, a hy-
drological forecasting model connects the output of a hydrological system
not only with hydro-climatic variables but in addition also with ante-
cedent observed values of the considered output of the hydrological
system. It is evident that a simulation model can be operated in a
forecasting mode by considering the past observed values of the model
output. Simulation of streamflows is especially crucial for specific hy-
drological applications such as obtaining continuous streamflow re-
cords in ungauged basins where measured streamflow is not available.
As indicated by Chen et al. (2014), machine learning models are quite
promising in streamflow forecasting by incorporating observed ante-
cedent streamflow values but could give a poor performance by only
considering other hydro-meteorological variables (i.e. simulation). The
nonlinear relationship with a low correlation between streamflow and
other hydro-meteorological variables could lead to such poor simula-
tion results. Further, machine learning models do not incorporate
physical equations or relationships and do rely on mainly linear re-
lationships between streamflow and other variables. Noise and the re-
latively small length of data sets in addition to different hydro-me-
teorological characteristics between training and testing periods known
as non-stationarity could also deteriorate this relationship. Thus, it is
important to analyze, and if necessary and feasible, improve the cap-
abilities of streamflow simulation of machine learning models. To the
best of our knowledge the streamflow forecasting and simulation cap-
abilities of machine learning models like SVR, ANN and random forest
have not been examined rigorously and jointly on a daily scale. While
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Journal of Hydrology 564 (2018) 266–282
several studies focused on simulation models for rainfall-runoff re-
lationships (e.g., Chen et al., 2014; Garbrecht, 2006; Ju et al., 2009; Lee
et al., 2008) their models can be largely considered as forecasting
models rather than as simulation models based on the model input
structure.
Separating streamflow into different components such as base flow
and surface flow can be useful for improving simulation and forecasting
capabilities of machine learning models. In the last decade, to decom-
pose the streamflow series into several sub-series the wavelet decom-
position method was combined with several machine learning models
and promising results have been reported in a forecasting scheme (Liu
et al., 2014; Rezaie-balf et al., 2017). This method is considered to be an
efficient signal processing tool for extracting information of different
time scales, especially in the time-frequency domain with wavelet
coefficients. However, the optimum level of decomposition of the time
series is subjective, and there is no straightforward method for this aim
(Badrzadeh et al., 2016). Further, application of wavelet analysis re-
quires a certain level of expertise, because one should be aware of
underlying assumptions of different mother wavelet functions such as
Haar, Morlet, and Coiflet1. As indicated by Du et al. (2017), this
method may also be widely incorrectly used in literature since the au-
thors of these studies may not be aware that they erroneously include
the information of the future values to be forecasted. However, with the
proposed methodology in this study, the straightforward base flow se-
paration can be functional for capturing the nonlinear relationship
between streamflow and meteorological variables by introducing a
temporary memory component to the machine learning models. Be-
cause, the base and surface flows provide different useful information
about variations, periodicity, and trends. These processes could result
from different hydro-meteorological conditions and using them as input
to the machine learning models providing additional temporal in-
formation about the physical processes can be included in a straight-
forward manner.
Several studies employed the idea of separating streamflow dy-
namics into sub-dynamics. Hu et al. (2001) developed a range-depen-
dent network by considering several ANNs to model the different
streamflow regimes (e.g. low, medium, and high) and concluded that a
modular approach is better than a single model. Solomatine and Xue
(2004) coupled the M5 model tree and ANNs to forecast floods and
found that this hybrid model is better than its single counterparts. Wang
et al. (2006) grouped a hydrological time series according to its specific
dynamics with a threshold variable. They reported that different models
for each group could give better results than a single global model fitted
to all data. Corzo and Solomatine (2007) employed three different flow
separation techniques to improve the forecasting performance of an
ANN model and found that the modular ANN gave a better result than a
global ANN model. Rezaie-balf et al. (2017) used a wavelet decom-
position method to enhance a modular model that is comprised of
multivariate adaptive regression splines and M5 model trees to forecast
groundwater level. They found that the modular model is better than its
single counterparts based on performance indices. These studies re-
vealed that separating the output of a hydrological system into its dif-
ferent components can be used for the improvement of model perfor-
mances. However, some drawbacks associated with these studies are:
(1) coupling of different models into a single model could be difficult
for modellers who are unfamiliar with two or more models, (2) in-
tegrating several models within a single forecasting scheme could be
computationally expensive, and (3) optimization of several models for
simulation purposes (not for forecasting purposes) necessitates curve
fitting for each model to each component potentially leading to error
accumulation and considerable uncertainty in the output. Further,
previous studies have mainly focused on forecasting performances of
machine learning models. All these considerations encourage the im-
provement of machine learning models by using a simple base flow
separation technique. With the proposed methodology, it is easily
possible to separate streamflow into base and surface flows. Then, these
H. Tongal, M.J. Booij
can be utilized in straightforward simulation and forecasting schemes
for a single machine learning model without adding two or more
models. To this end, the aims of this study are (1) analysing whether a
base flow separation technique could improve the simulation cap-
abilities of standalone machine learning models (i.e. SVR, ANN and
random forest) and (2) investigating the performances of standalone
machine learning models in simulation and forecasting of rainfall-
runoff relationships on a daily scale. To the best of our knowledge,
these research aims have not been addressed and tested so far.
2. Study area and data
The streamflow measurements used in the analyses were acquired
from the U.S Geological Survey for four stations in the United States
(US), namely Station #11427000 North Fork Dam—North Fork River,
Station #12027500 Chehalis River, Station #10309000 East Fork of the
Carson River, and Station #11342000 Sacramento River. These rivers
have been chosen because their basins have different sizes with distinct
topographic and hydro-climatic regimes from different regions of the
U.S. However, the developed methodology can be applied to any un-
regulated river that has observations of discharge, precipitation and
temperature.
North Fork American River is the longest branch of the American
River in northern California (Kang and Lee, 2014) and its drainage area
is about 875 km2. Precipitation is the primary forcing input that varies
with elevation where the mean annual precipitation is about 1651 mm
in Blue Canyon at 1676 m above mean sea level (a.m.s.l.), and it is
about 813 mm in Auburn at 393 m a.m.s.l. (Jeton et al., 1996; Kang and
Lee, 2014). Dettinger et al. (2004) showed that about two-thirds of the
streamflow originates from rainfall and snow-melt in winter while less
than one-third originates from snow-melt in spring.
Located in the south-west region of Washington, the Chehalis River
basin is the third largest river basin in the State of Washington with a
drainage area of about 6900 km2. The basin is mainly rain-fed with
mean annual precipitation levels of 1520–2030 mm (Henning et al.,
2007). Frequent flooding is a significant problem for the basin, there
have been 45 floods since 1945. The Chehalis River basin shows typical
hydrological characteristics of rivers in western Washington with
minimal snowmelt input. High flows are directly related to intense
rainfall, and critical low flows can be observed in late summer. Seasonal
high flows occur from November to March following the typical winter
rainfall. Flow decreases through the spring and summer months due to
relatively dry climate conditions and absence of a snowpack
(Kimbrough et al., 2006).
East Fork of the Carson River basin is a snowmelt-dominated
mountainous basin in the western United States. The western United
States has a climate with semi-arid to arid conditions with the highest
precipitation totals occurring in the mountainous region (Hay and
Clark, 2003). Between 50 and 70% of the annual precipitation in these
areas falls as snow and constitutes the bulk of its annual flow. The
Carson River has a drainage area of about 920 km2 with elevations
between approximately 1600–3000 m (Hay et al., 2000). Frequent rain-
on-snow events are a typical feature of the basin. The relation between
potential evapotranspiration and precipitation is about 12:1 (Grantz
et al., 2007).
Sacramento River is the largest river in the State of California by
carrying about 31% of the total surface water of the state, and it is the
second largest U.S. river draining into the Pacific Ocean. In the
downstream part, there is the largest storage reservoir of California,
Shasta Lake. The reservoir supplies water for agricultural, municipal
and industrial use, is used for navigation and supports a wide variety of
fish habitats (Sapin et al., 2017). The watershed has a Mediterranean
climate characterized by wet winters and dry summers with a mean
monthly temperature varying between 4.5 and 22.4 °C (Chiu et al.,
2017). Little or no precipitation falls between May and October and
most precipitation occurs between November and April. In addition to
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Journal of Hydrology 564 (2018) 266–282
this seasonal variation of precipitation, it also varies spatially where
heavier precipitation is concentrated in the northern part of the state.
All streamflow time series span from 01.01.1948 to 31.12.2001,
since we do not have more recent data after 2001. The data were di-
vided into three subsets for the aims of training, calibration, and vali-
dation. The first 80% of the record is used for training, about 16% is
reserved for the calibration and the remaining two years (about 4% of
the total dataset) is used for the validation. We kept the sizes of training
and calibration periods as large as possible because, generally, machine
learning models require a high amount of data value to capture the
dynamics of streamflow. To ensure the generalizability, a high amount
of data demand is coupled in the simulation scheme. Because, instead of
using the observed values, simulated values with less correlated to the
output values were used in the input structure. Further, we also jointly
optimize both parameters and structures of the models based on the
training and calibration period.
3. Methodology
This section includes descriptions of Support Vector Regression
(SVR), Random Forest (RF), and Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs)
models with information about model parameters and input structures
for streamflow simulation and forecasting. Furthermore, the formulas
of several performance indices and the methods for the estimation of
evapotranspiration and base flow separation are presented.
3.1. Support vector regression
Developed by Vapnik and Chervonenkis (1964) and Vapnik (1995),
a support vector machine is a kind of machine learning technique that is
widely applied to classification and regression problems. Support
Vector Regression (SVR) stands for utilizing support vector machines
for the regression. The method embodies structural risk minimization in
contrast to the empirical risk minimization approach that is commonly
used by statistical learning methods such as artificial neural networks
(Lin et al., 2006). The structural risk minimization method minimizes
empirical risk to achieve a good generalization capacity by reducing the
generalization error as opposed to the training error (Belayneh et al.,
2014; Maity et al., 2010). The basic premise of SVR is the nonlinear
mapping of the original data into a higher dimensional feature space by
using a kernel function and then performing linear regression in the
feature space (Kalra et al., 2013). Details of this technique are well
established in the literature and can be found elsewhere (Maity et al.,
2010; Yoon et al., 2011; Yu et al., 2017).
There are several kernels that can be used in SVR such as linear,
polynomial, sigmoid and radial basis functions. It is well documented
that the radial basis kernel function performs better than other kernels
(Barzegar et al., 2017; Lin et al., 2006; Liong and Sivapragasam, 2002;
Wu and Wang, 2009; Yu and Liong, 2007). Further as indicated by
Dibike et al. (2001), the radial basis kernel function outperformed other
kernels in rainfall-runoff modeling. It is more compact than other
kernel functions and reduces the computational time with a higher
generalization performance (Choy and Chan, 2003; Maity et al., 2010).
Therefore, we used the radial basis kernel function in this study.
3.2. Random forest
Random Forests (RFs) are an ensemble of decision trees based on
bootstrap aggregation with random variable selection (Breiman, 2001).
The RF method is a robust nonparametric approach for modeling and
classification of large nonlinear, noisy, and multivariate correlated data
(Mohr et al., 2017; Strobl et al., 2008). A single decision tree is well
known to have a high variance and is prone to noise while showing
statistical instability (Zhu and Pierskalla, 2016). Statistical instability
means that a small perturbation in the training data leads to substantial
changes in model outputs. To eliminate over-fitting and statistical
H. Tongal, M.J. Booij
instability, bootstrap aggregation is used to build many decision trees
by randomly sampling the observed dataset with replacement (Mohr
et al., 2017). Predictions for unobserved data can be obtained by
averaging predictions from an ensemble of trees, or forest. The RF
method advances bootstrap aggregation not only by using a subset of
training data, but also by using randomly sampled input variables or
features for splitting tree nodes (Zhu and Pierskalla, 2016). More details
can be found in Xu and Valocchi (2015) and Schnier and Cai (2014),
among others.
3.3. Artificial neural networks
Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) are information processing sys-
tems having interconnected neurons to reconstruct complex nonlinear
input-output relationships. ANNs are composed of simple processing
elements (nodes) connected by weighted synaptic connections (Tiwari
and Chatterjee, 2010b). ANN models are specified by network structure
or topology, activation functions, and training algorithms. Among dif-
ferent types of ANNs, multi-layer perceptron feed-forward neural net-
works are one of the most frequently used ANNs (e.g., Lohani et al.,
2011; Singh et al., 2009). In these networks, each neuron is related to
all neurons in the preceding layer, and the output of each layer is taken
as an input for the subsequent layer. Several studies indicated that
Newton or quasi-Newton optimization techniques such as Levenberg-
Marquart (Hagan and Menhaj, 1994) and Broyden–-
Fletcher–Goldfarb–Shanno algorithms are fast in convergence time,
being less easily trapped in local minima (Aqil et al., 2007b; Badrzadeh
et al., 2013), provide enough complexity to capture nonlinear and dy-
namic relationships in hydrological processes and have better gen-
eralization capabilities than the descent gradient back-propagation al-
gorithm (Aqil et al., 2007a). Thus, the three-layer feed-forward neural
network with the Levenberg-Marquart back-propagation algorithm was
used in this study. The logistic sigmoid function is more widely used in
hydrological studies than the hyperbolic tangent sigmoid function (e.g.,
Karunasinghe and Liong, 2006; Melesse et al., 2011; Riad et al., 2004).
However, as indicated by Zadeh et al. (2010) and Maier and Dandy
(1998), the tangent sigmoid function is not only faster in training of the
network, but also provides better predictions than the logistic sigmoid
function. Wang et al. (2006) showed that the output of the logistic
sigmoid function is constrained in a relatively smaller range than the
tangent sigmoid function that leads to the outputs of ANN models with
the logistic sigmoid function being more sensitive to the input interval.
Moreover, a linear transfer function in the output neuron in a situation
with an unknown output range of the time series is advantageous
(Haykin, 1999). Therefore, a combination of a hyperbolic tangent
function and a linear transfer function in the hidden and output layer
was used since this is effective when extrapolating beyond the range of
training data (Maier and Dandy, 2000).
3.4. Estimation of evapotranspiration
Numerous methods have been developed to estimate potential
evapotranspiration that can mainly be divided into two broad groups:
(1) radiation-based methods (e.g., Priestley-Taylor and Turc methods)
and (2) temperature based methods (e.g., Hargreaves, Blaney-Criddle,
and Thornthwaite methods). As shown in Tukimat et al. (2012), ra-
diation-based methods could be advantageous over the temperature-
based methods. However, these methods are parameter-rich methods
and require reliable measurements of meteorological variables. In this
study, the lack of reliable meteorological data of humidity, wind speed,
and solar radiation made it necessary to use a temperature-based
method. Since the Thornthwaite method (Thornthwaite, 1948) could be
misleading since it gives zero potential evapotranspiration for tem-
peratures below zero degree Celsius (Rhee and Im, 2017), the widely-
used Hargreaves (Hargreaves and Samani, 1985) method can be a re-
liable alternative since its validity has been shown in numerous studies
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Journal of Hydrology 564 (2018) 266–282
(e.g., Chen et al., 2016; Das et al., 2008; Goyal et al., 2014; Salerno and
Tartari, 2009) in addition to the relatively few data requirements. The
equation for potential evapotranspiration is expressed below:
ET0 = 0.0023·0.408·Ra (Tavg + 17.8)·TD 0.50 (1)
where Ra is the extraterrestrial radiation (MJ m−2 d−1)
and can be ob-
tained from equations based on latitude (Allen et al., 1998). The con-
stant 0.408 is used to convert the radiation to evaporation equivalents
in mm. Tavg indicates the average daily temperature (°C), and TD (°C) is
the difference between the maximum and minimum daily temperature.
3.5. Base flow separation
A separation of the hydrograph is useful for determining runoff
components originating from different dynamics of a catchment such as
delayed and smoothed responses to rainfall events. Base flow and direct
runoff can be linked with low and high-frequency variability of
streamflow, respectively. As indicated by Eckhardt (2005) it is possible
to identify base flow with low-pass filtering of streamflow. Eckhardt
(2008) compared several base flow separation methods (e.g., HYSEP1,
HYSEP2, HYSEP3, PART, and UKIH) and concluded that the recursive
digital filters yield extensively smooth time series of base flow. There-
fore, the one-parameter recursive single-pass digital filter method was
used in this study. Its efficiency was also shown in some hydrological
studies (e.g., Arnold et al., 1995; Sawicz et al., 2011) in addition to
being computationally efficient. A straightforward formulation of the
one-parameter filter is (Chapman, 1991; Lyne and Hollick, 1979):
α 1−α
bt = bt − 1 + Qt
2−α 2−α (2)
where bt and bt − 1 are the filtered base flows at time step t and t −1, Qt is
the observed streamflow at a time step t , and α is the filter parameter
which was set to 0.925 based on the studies of Eckhardt (2008), Sawicz
et al. (2011), and Razavi and Coulibaly (2013).
3.6. Determination of input structure and calibration of model parameters
Antecedent values of input variables could be considered to re-
present the catchment characteristics in a data-driven model
(Solomatine and Xue, 2004). The components of a hydrograph, the base
flow and surface flow, are representative of slowly varying groundwater
and direct response of the basin to the rainfall events, respectively.
These are related to different storages (i.e. groundwater and surface
water), and while the surface flow can be considered as a sudden re-
sponse, the base flow can be recognized as a slowly varying long-term
response of a basin (Serinaldi et al., 2014). Therefore, it is possible to
represent different storages and corresponding responses of the catch-
ment with antecedent values of base flow and surface flow.
The most significant input combination of precipitation (P), poten-
tial evapotranspiration (PET) and temperature (T) in addition to base
flow and surface flow for the simulation models was identified through
statistical analyses using cross-correlation, auto-correlation (ACF) and
partial auto-correlation (PACF) functions in addition to the forward
stepwise regression method for each catchment. A qualitative analysis
of cross-correlation structures revealed which antecedent values of
variables profoundly influence the discharge. Further, ACF and PACF
could suggest the influencing antecedent variables with a possible
periodic structure (Lin et al., 2006). In the forward stepwise regression
method, input variables are subsequently added to the single best input
variable up to the allowed number of antecedent values determined
from the correlation analyses. Evaluation of changes in adjusted-R2
indicates whether the added new parameter improves the model more
than would be expected by chance. While there are several nonlinear
methods for determining the input structure especially for a forecasting
scheme such as partial mutual information (May et al., 2008) and the
gamma test (Stefánsson et al., 1997), here, we both qualitatively and
H. Tongal, M.J. Booij
quantitatively evaluated the response times (i.e. memory components)
of catchments as a function of other hydro-climatic variables and cor-
relations among the most significant input variables and the output
variable. After a number of experiments on the training dataset aimed
at finding the relevant inputs, the following common input structure
was selected:
Qt = f (Qtg− 1, Qts− 1, PETt , PETt − 1, Tt , Tt − 7, Tt − 14, Tt − 21, Pt , Pt − 1, Pt − 2, ...,Pt − 7)
where Qtg− 1
and are the simulated (not observed) base flow and
Qts− 1
surface flow of the antecedent day, respectively. It was also possible to
obtain different input structures for different catchments and different
models; however, this would significantly complicate the analysis of the
performance of the proposed methodology since one cannot be sure
whether the differences in the results came from the input structure, the
developed methodology or the employed model. Therefore, we used a
common best performing input structure to eliminate additional un-
certainties due to different input variables.
To analyze whether the simulation with the base flow separation
method improved the simulation of streamflow values, we also con-
sidered a simulation mode without base flow separation. In this case,
the model structure is:
Qt = f (Qtsim
− 1 , PETt , PETt − 1, Tt , Tt − 7, Tt − 14, Tt − 21, Pt , Pt − 1, Pt − 2, ...,Pt − 7 )
where Qtsimis the simulated discharge at time step t −1. Further, to show
−1
differences in model performances in simulation and forecasting modes,
we also analyzed forecasting results by considering the following model
structure:
′ ′
Qt = f (Qtg− 1, Qts− 1 PETt , PETt − 1, Tt , Tt − 7, Tt − 14, Tt − 21, Pt , Pt − 1, Pt − 2, ...,Pt − 7)
′ ′
where Qtg− 1 and Qts− 1
are observed base flow and surface flow at time step
t −1. Prior to the model development, normalization was applied to all
input variables as:
X0 −μx
Xscaled =
σx
where Xscaled and X0 indicate the scaled and original data, μx and σx
represent the mean and standard deviation of the original data, re-
spectively. For each machine learning method used in this study, the
optimal model parameters were selected by maximizing the objective
function (Kling-Gupta efficiency, see section 3.7.3) using training and
calibration data sets. The Kling-Gupta efficiency objective function
eliminates the significant drawbacks of the widely-used Nash-Sutcliffe
efficiency by considering correlation, deviation and variability, jointly
(Muñoz et al., 2014). To this end, in contrast to the time-consuming
evaluation of different standalone performance indices to select the best
model parameters, the Kling-Gupta efficiency provides a better under-
standing of model performances by considering different performance
components obtained from the calibration stage (Gupta et al., 2009).
The models were developed on the training dataset with a range of
parameter values, and the objective function value was calculated for
the calibration period. The range of parameter values were determined
by examining several hydrological studies such as Shortridge et al.
(2016) Raghavendra and Deka (2014), Kumar et al. (2016), Naghibi
et al. (2017), Worland et al. (2018) and from several studies reviewed
by Fotovatikhah et al. (2018). Then, the optimal model parameters
were kept, and the best models were used to simulate streamflow for
the validation period.
3.6.1. Parameters of SVR
In SVR, three governing parameters, that are the tolerance threshold
or ε -precision, the regularization parameter (i.e. C, cost constant), and
the kernel function parameter of the radial basis kernel function (i.e. σ ),
should be optimized. In this study, the values of SVR model parameters
Journal of Hydrology 564 (2018) 266–282
were determined by a trial-and-error process by using a grid-search
technique on the training and calibration datasets. The best parameter
sets are kept that maximize the objective function value calculated for
the calibration data set. A range of values for parameter ε between 0.01
and 0.5 with an increment of 0.01, for the cost constant (C ) between 1
and 5 with an increment of 0.1, and for the σ parameter between 0.01
and 1 with an increment 0.01 were evaluated.
(3)
3.6.2. Parameters of RF
For a RF model, two parameters are needed to be defined, the
number of variables/features to be used in each tree-building process
(mtry ) and the number of trees to be built in the forest to run (ntree ). As
indicated by Yu et al. (2017), sometimes even mtry = 1 can provide a
reasonable performance. For classification and regression tasks, re-
spectively, one-third and the square root of the total number of input
variables is suggested (Breiman, 2003; Liaw and Wiener, 2002). In this
study, for the parameter mtry , several values were considered varying
from 1 to twice the number of input variables. The generalization error
increases beyond an optimal value of ntree and generally, a value of 500
is used (Booker and Woods, 2014; Yu et al., 2017). In this study, dif-
ferent values for the parameter ntree varying from 100 to 1000 with an
increment of 100 were tried.
(4)
3.6.3. Parameters of ANN
The number of neurons in the input and output layers is dependent
on the modeled system/problem, and the number of neurons in the
hidden layer should be determined. The weights between input and
hidden neurons were obtained in the training dataset for various
numbers of hidden neurons up to 10. The performances of trained ANN
(5) models were evaluated for the calibration dataset. Since the random
initialization of weights could lead to different performance indices for
the same number of hidden neurons, we have trained 100 ANNs for
each number of hidden neurons in the training stage. Then, the best
combination of weights and number of hidden neurons is kept that
maximizes the objective function value calculated for the calibration
data set.
(6)
3.7. Performance indices
To select the appropriate model parameters and to evaluate model
performances, various performance criteria were used. These perfor-
mance indices are generally used in hydrological studies because they
are reliable and easily interpretable, and are recommended for evalu-
ating the generalizability and reliability of forecasting and simulation
hydrological models (Doycheva et al., 2017; Legates and McCabe, 1999;
Patel and Ramachandran, 2015; Wang et al., 2009). We are aware that
there are also other hydrological metrics, but we intend to give a
straightforward comparison of models in terms of model performances
within simulation and forecasting frameworks with the root mean
square error (RMSE), Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient of efficiency (NSE),
Kling-Gupta efficiency (KGE), volumetric efficiency (VE), index of
agreement (d), and persistence index (PI) as described below.
3.7.1. Root mean square error (RMSE)
RMSE is one of the most employed criteria to assess model effi-
ciency:
N
RMSE = N−1 ∑ (Oi−Si )2
i=1 (7)
where N is the length of the data set, Oi and Si are observed and si-
mulated values, respectively. The RMSE gives more importance to
outliers in the data set, and thus it is biased towards errors in the si-
mulation of high values (Mekanik et al., 2016).
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H. Tongal, M.J. Booij
3.7.2. Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE)
The NSE (Nash and Sutcliffe, 1970) is commonly used in the eva-
luation of performances of hydrological models, and as indicated by
Servat and Dezetter (1991) it is one of the best performance metrics for
reflecting the overall fit of a hydrograph.
N
∑ (Oi−Si )2
NSE = 1− iN= 1
∑i = 1 (Oi−O¯ )2
where Ō is the mean of observed values. It varies between −∞ and 1
(perfect fit). Values between 0 and 1 show an acceptable model per-
formance, while a NSE lower than zero indicates that the mean value of
the series is a better estimation than the constructed model (Moriasi
et al., 2007).
3.7.3. Kling-Gupta efficiency (KGE)
The Kling-Gupta efficiency is an improvement of the NSE in which
correlation, bias, and variability are considered jointly to overcome
systematic underestimation of peaks and variability in the NSE (Gupta
et al., 2009). It ranges between −∞ and 1 (perfect fit). The KGE is
defined as:
KGE = 1− (r −1)2 + (α−1)2 + (β−1)2
where r is the correlation coefficient, α represents variability and is the
ratio of the standard deviation of simulated and observed time series,
and β is the bias and obtained by dividing the mean of simulated time
series by the mean of observed time series.
3.7.4. Volumetric efficiency (VE)
Criss and Winston (2008) proposed the volumetric efficiency (VE) to
circumvent some problems associated with the Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency
such as overemphasizing high flows relative to other observations due
to the squared deviations. VE varies between −∞ and 1 and is calcu-
lated as:
N Chehalis River, the RF model showed a better performance. For the
∑i = 1 |Si−Oi |
VE = 1− N
∑i = 1 Oi
3.7.5. Index of agreement (d)
The Index of Agreement (d) (Willmott, 1981) is a standardized
measure of the degree of the agreement between observed and modeled
values and bounded between 0 (no agreement at all) and 1 (perfect fit).
It is given by:
N
∑i = 1 (Oi−Si )2
d = 1− N North Fork, Carson, Sacramento rivers) and RF (for the Sacramento
∑i = 1 (|Si−O¯ | + |Oi−O¯ |)2
Similarly to NSE, the index of agreement is also sensitive to extreme
values due to the squared form. However, it can quantify the additive
and proportional differences in the observed and simulated means and
variances (Legates and McCabe, 1999).
3.7.6. Persistence index (PI)
The PI proposed by Kitanidis and Bras (1980) compares the outputs
of a model with the best estimate for the future as given by the last
observation (Randrianasolo et al., 2011). It is assumed that the mod-
elled process is a Wiener process in which the variance is a linear
function of time. In this case, the best estimate of the future is given by
the last observation (Kitanidis and Bras, 1980):
N
∑i = 1 (Oi−Si )2
PI = 1− N lidation period, except RMSE (for all rivers), KGE (for the Chehalis
∑i = 1 (Oi−Oi − L )2
where Oi − L is the last observed value at time i minus the lag time L . The
PI evaluates the model performance against a benchmark (i.e. the last
observed flow) where a score of 1 indicates a perfect fit and 0 is no
Journal of Hydrology 564 (2018) 266–282
Table 1
Parameters of simulation models for four catchments.
Parameters of models SVR ANN RF
ε C σ Number of hidden mtry ntree
neurons
North Fork River 0.10 2.0 0.12 3 12 500
(8) Chehalis River 0.20 2.0 0.09 2 12 500
Carson River 0.20 1.0 0.12 2 1 500
Sacramento River 0.11 3.4 0.13 5 7 500
better than the benchmark (McMillan et al., 2013).
4. Results and discussion
In this study, all the models, i.e., SVR, ANN, and RF, were set up for
four catchments. To understand whether the base flow separation had
an impact on simulation performances, the simulation models were
developed both with and without the base flow separation. Moreover,
the results for the forecasting mode with base flow separation were
included to show differences between the simulation and forecasting
(9) schemes.
4.1. Simulation results with base flow separation
The obtained optimal model parameters are shown in Table 1 and
the values of model performance criteria for both calibration and va-
lidation periods are presented in Tables 2 and 3. It is clear from Table 2
that ANN models were more efficient in the simulation mode with base
flow separation in the calibration stage for the North Fork, Chehalis and
Sacramento rivers while SVR was more efficient for the Carson River.
However, the SVR model outperformed other models in the validation
period for the North Fork, Carson, and Sacramento rivers; for the
Chehalis River, the performance statistics of the ANN model are close to
(10) those of the RF model for the validation period.
Interestingly, there are some improvements in the model perfor-
mances in the validation period compared to the calibration period. For
instance, for the North Fork River, while the ANN model has the best
performance in the calibration period, the SVR model showed the best
performance in the validation period. Similarly, in the validation per-
iods of the Chehalis and Sacramento rivers, overall RF and SVR per-
formed better than the ANN model which showed the best performance
in the calibration period for these rivers. In summary, SVR (for the
(11) River) performed better than the ANN models in the validation period.
It can be concluded that while better calibrated, the generalization
capability of ANN models is less than that of SVR and RF models for the
considered rivers. This finding is similar to the finding of Shortridge
et al. (2016) where the authors simulated monthly discharges of five
rivers with machine learning methods such as ANN and RF. They in-
dicated that RF performed better than the ANN model with the standard
formulation that includes antecedent values of monthly total pre-
cipitation, average temperature, and a total percentage of agricultural
land cover.
It is well known that in some cases the generalization capability for
forecasting of ANN models is moderate (Goyal et al., 2014; Yoon et al.,
2011). Interestingly, we found a similar result for the simulation cap-
ability of ANN models (Tables 2 and 3). The performance indices of
ANN models in the calibration period are higher than those in the va-
(12)
River) and PI (for the Carson and Sacramento rivers), indicating a poor
generalization capability in streamflow simulation. As indicated by Wu
and Chau (2011) a lagged prediction effect could emerge in ANN
modelling studies especially when only antecedent flow values are used
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Table 2
Performance indices obtained from the simulation models for all rivers for the calibration period with base flow separation.
North Fork River Chehalis River Carson River Sacramento River

SVR ANN RF SVR ANN RF SVR ANN RF SVR ANN RF

RMSE 1.46 1.38 1.44 1.65 1.32 1.94 0.68 0.87 1.21 2.84 2.09 2.38
NSE 0.83 0.85 0.84 0.91 0.94 0.88 0.80 0.67 0.37 0.70 0.83 0.79
KGE 0.91 0.91 0.86 0.94 0.91 0.94 0.81 0.76 0.35 0.74 0.89 0.75
VE 0.72 0.74 0.72 0.77 0.81 0.78 0.67 0.57 0.27 0.70 0.72 0.62
d 0.96 0.96 0.95 0.98 0.99 0.97 0.96 0.90 0.69 0.90 0.95 0.93
PI 0.39 0.46 0.41 0.27 0.53 −0.02 −5.59 −9.75 −19.86 −0.48 0.19 −0.04

Bold numbers indicate the best value of the considered performance indices for the rivers.

as input. In this study, we found no lag effect in the simulated discharge RF model gave somewhat unacceptably biased simulation values be-
values as can be seen in Figs. 1–4. tween 0 and 0.5 m3 s−1. Possible reasons for this result could be the
Observed and simulated streamflows using the optimal models are better generalization capability of SVR due to the structural risk mini-
shown in Figs. 1–4. A good overall match between the daily observed mization approach that leads to an optimal global solution (see Gizaw
and simulated values can be seen except for the Carson River. All and Gan, 2016; Kumar et al., 2016; Shrestha and Shukla, 2015) and
models show their worst performance for this river, especially the RF complex rainfall-runoff relationships in the Carson River, which will be
model. The poor simulation results of the RF model could be due to the discussed in Section 4.4. To understand whether the base flow separa-
model parameters and catchment dynamics. It is clear that the RF tion method increased efficiencies of the models, we also developed
model, of which the mtry parameter is equal to 1, is unable to simulate simulation models without the base flow separation method in the
the catchment dynamics of the Carson River. Some studies indicated following section.
that a RF model with one variable/feature (i.e., mtry = 1) resulted in a
good accuracy (e.g., Liaw and Wiener, 2002), whereas one variable
4.2. Simulation results without base flow separation
seems to be insufficient to obtain good simulation results in this study.
It should be noted that the random forest model is a rule-based non-
Simulation results without base flow separation were obtained by
parametric approach where the model output is obtained with a mean
using Eq. (4) to analyse the contribution of the proposed simulation
value of an ensemble of trees. In some cases, the majority of classes
method. From Tables 1–5, it is clear that models developed using the
could lead to a bias in the output due to the averaging process.
base flow separation method are superior to the models without base
Therefore, rather than an averaging method, linear models can be
flow separation in both calibration and validation periods with the
employed in each leaf of ensemble trees as in the M5 model tree.
exceptions of the RF model for the Chehalis and Carson rivers. The RF
Several studies indicated that the M5 model tree could be successfully
model of the Chehalis River gave better results in the calibration period
applied to hydrological problems (e.g., Bhattacharya and Solomatine,
without base flow separation (Table 4). In the validation period, the
2005; Esmaeilzadeh et al., 2017; Rezaie-balf et al., 2017; Solomatine
KGE value (i.e., 0.92 in Table 5) is better than its counterpart (i.e., 0.89
and Xue, 2004), thus, can be a reliable alternative to a random forest
in Table 3) for this model. For the Carson River, all performance indices
model in simulation of streamflow which deserves future investigation.
of the RF model in the calibration (Table 4) and validation (Table 5)
Additionally, the catchment dynamics of the Carson River could have
without base flow separation are better than those in the calibration
significant impacts on the model performances. As we discuss in detail
(Table 2) and validation (Table 3) obtained by using base flow se-
in Section 4.4, the Carson River is a snow-melt dominated basin, and
paration. Especially, the validation results of this river indicated that
the input structure seems to be insufficient to simulate the lagged re-
the base flow separation considerably deteriorated the simulation per-
lationship between snowmelt and runoff. It is clear that there is a need
formance of the RF model. Possible reasons for obtaining a poor si-
for future work to improve the simulation capabilities of machine
mulation result with the RF model for the Carson River with base flow
learning models for snow-dominated basins. The worst performances of
separation could be the value of the model parameter (i.e., mtry = 1),
all models were obtained for this river in both calibration and valida-
input redundancy, and collinearity. When mtry = 1, the RF model evi-
tion periods.
dently could not simulate basin dynamics with a high number of input
By comparing the performances of all models for the Carson River, it
features with complex interrelations. Increases in the majority of classes
is evident that SVR showed the best performance. Notably, the scatter
with a high number of features could lead to bias in the random forest
diagram of observed and simulated values is acceptable only for the
due to the averaging process (Zhu and Pierskalla, 2016). Therefore, a
SVR model. The scatter diagrams of the other models indicate con-
high number of input features could lead to bias in the outputs. Input
sistent biases. For instance, the ANN model consistently underestimated
redundancy could also lead to such a result. Input redundancy could
and overestimated observed values between 0.5 and 3 m3 s−1. Also, the
result from a situation where specific input features provide redundant

Table 3
Performance indices obtained from the simulation models for all rivers for the validation period with base flow separation.
North Fork River Chehalis River Carson River Sacramento River

SVR ANN RF SVR ANN RF SVR ANN RF SVR ANN RF

RMSE 1.04 1.32 1.24 1.39 0.99 0.94 0.34 0.53 1.09 1.50 1.59 1.70
NSE 0.83 0.73 0.76 0.85 0.93 0.93 0.84 0.61 −0.67 0.84 0.83 0.80
KGE 0.88 0.81 0.73 0.89 0.94 0.89 0.77 0.72 −0.43 0.90 0.85 0.83
VE 0.67 0.57 0.64 0.65 0.76 0.80 0.64 0.46 −0.46 0.73 0.70 0.64
d 0.95 0.93 0.94 0.96 0.98 0.98 0.96 0.87 0.68 0.96 0.95 0.94
PI 0.60 0.35 0.43 −0.15 0.42 0.48 −2.81 −8.14 −38.25 0.51 0.45 0.37

Bold numbers indicate the best value of the considered performance indices for the rivers.

272
H. Tongal, M.J. Booij
50
40
Discharge (m3s )
-1
30
20
10
0
0 100 200
Fig. 1. Simulated and observed hydrographs and scatter diagrams of the North Fork River for the validation period.
information (Wei, 2016). This phenomenon could lead to more complex
rules in a random forest and consequently over-fitting. An over-fitted
random forest might be susceptible to error propagation in streamflow
simulation since each leaf of a decision tree in the random forest is
dependent on simple decision rules and seemingly small perturbations
in decisions lead to high errors in the final value (i.e. the simulated
value). However, it is clear that developing the RF model with less input
features (i.e. without base flow separation) with mtry = 1 improved the
model simulation performance significantly. Except for the issues
mentioned above, we can infer that base flow separation improved the
simulation performances of all models. This can be better seen in the
performances of the selected best models according to the validation
results with and without base flow separation (Fig. 5).
It is evident from Fig. 5 that the simulation with base flow separa-
tion improved the performances of the selected best models except for
the RF model for the Chehalis River with only a small decrease in the
KGE index from 0.92 to 0.89. Overall, the highest increase was obtained
for the SVR model for the Carson River and the improvement for all
rivers can be seen especially from the normalized RMSE and PI values.
Except for the Chehalis River, we obtained large decreases in the nor-
malized RMSEs and significant increases in PI values. Fig. 5 shows that
the smallest performance gain was obtained for the Chehalis River
where performances of all models are quite good for the simulation,
possibly due to the less complex catchment dynamics (see Section 4.4).
Journal of Hydrology 564 (2018) 266–282
North Fork River
Observation
Support vector regression
Artificial neural networks
Random forest
300 400 500 600 700
Days
4.3. Comparison of simulation and forecasting results
In this section, we compare the simulation and forecasting perfor-
mances of the models. To get a valid evaluation of the difference be-
tween the model structures for simulation and forecasting, the same
model parameters for the simulation are used in the forecasting stage.
To this end, the used input structure of Eq. (3) was changed to the
structure of Eq. (5). The forecasting performance of the models can be
found in Tables 6 and 7 for the calibration and validation period, re-
spectively. In the calibration period, the RF (North Fork and Sacra-
mento rivers) and ANN (Chehalis and Carson rivers) models performed
better than the SVR models. Similarly, in the validation period, the RF
(Chehalis and Sacramento rivers) and ANN (North Fork and Carson
rivers) models outperformed the SVR model. However, it should be
noted that forecasting performances of the SVR model are still rea-
sonable and are close to those of RF and ANN.
Using one-day antecedent observed base flow and surface flow in
the forecasting, rather than the simulated values as in the simulation
mode, significantly increased the performances of the models in the
calibration and validation periods. The highest increase in performance
from simulation to forecasting was observed for the RF model. For in-
stance, in the validation period, it was the best forecasting model for
the rivers of Chehalis and Sacramento (Table 7). It is evident that in-
troducing observed correlated variables that are observed base flow and
surface flow at time step t −1 into the model structure increases the RF
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H. Tongal, M.J. Booij
Fig. 2. Simulated and observed hydrographs and scatter diagrams of the Chehalis River for the validation period.
model performance. The main reason for this could be that correlated
variables increased the performance of capturing dynamics by splitting
the feature space of each tree in RF. Further, in the simulation phase,
the model output is based on the previous output whereas the observed
values are integrated into the forecasting phase. The simulation results
showed that the RF model without base flow separation is better than
the simulation with base flow separation. It seems that error accumu-
lation is higher for RF than the other models when the previous output
is utilized in the simulation phase. It yielded better results when highly
correlated observed values were included in the model structure. As
indicated by Granata and de Marinis (2017), the error rate decreases if
the strength of the individual trees in the RF increases. The majority of
the classes increases the bias of the regular random forests method
because the method is constructed to obtain an overall minimum error
rate with equal considerations for all classes (Zhu and Pierskalla, 2016).
Including auto-correlated one-day antecedent observed base flow and
surface flow in the forecasting, rather than the simulated values as in
the simulation mode, could have possibly increased the strengths of
individual trees. Weighted random forests that give different weights to
different classes (i.e. different dynamics in hydro-climatic variables)
can be a potential alternative to the regular random forest in the si-
mulation of streamflows which is a beyond the scope of this study. Xu
and Valocchi (2015) indicated that all potential inputs could be in-
tegrated to a random forest since it is insensitive to the presence of
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Journal of Hydrology 564 (2018) 266–282
irrelevant input variables, because a variable selection is an integrated
part of RF in the tree growing process. However, since the highest
performance gain is obtained for the RF model by only changing the
input structure (i.e. from Eqs. (3)–(5)) it can be concluded that the RF
model is the most sensitive model to the input structure. Our simulation
and forecasting results point out that the RF model is sensitive to the
input structure of the model, and attention should be given to the se-
lection of input features.
The highest increases in model performance from simulation to
forecasting schemes were obtained for the Carson River. In the fol-
lowing section, we provide a detailed discussion about the catchment
dynamics of the Carson River and the obtained model performances for
this river.
4.4. Catchment dynamics of the Carson River
From Fig. 6, it can be seen that the Carson River is a snowmelt
dominated basin and most of the annual runoff comes from snowmelt
runoff. The basin is influenced by a significant snowmelt season in
May–June and streamflow is less dependent on rainfall and firmly
connected with air temperature variations (Hay et al., 2000). The
maximum Pearson correlation calculated for 365 days between tem-
perature and streamflow (r = 0.50) is higher than the one between
rainfall and streamflow (r = 0.16) and potential evapotranspiration and
H. Tongal, M.J. Booij
Fig. 3. Simulated and observed hydrographs and scatter diagrams of the Carson River for the validation period.
streamflow (r = 0.37) (not shown). The linear relationship between
rainfall and streamflow is insignificant for the Carson River (r = 0.16)
while there is a linear relationship for other rivers with a correlation of
0.47, 0.57, and 0.61 for the North Fork, Chehalis and Sacramento
rivers, respectively. This weak relationship could lead to the poor si-
mulation results for this river.
As indicated by Siou et al. (2011), the correlation between rainfall
and discharge for different time lags provides information about the
basin response to rainfall. A correlation drop below 0.2 can be con-
sidered as a “memory effect” in hydrology. The memory effect indicates
the possibility of predicting conditions in the future based on the his-
torical records. The only adverse memory effect (i.e. correlation below
zero) is consistently observed for the Carson River after lag one (not
shown). In other words, there is a negative relationship between rainfall
and discharge one or more days ahead. This finding indicates that there
is indeed a delay between temperatures above zero and snowmelt
runoff and, future discharges are negatively related with the previous
rainfall. Thus, it can be concluded that coupled in this mountainous
region, due to snowmelt runoff and a negative memory effect, the
runoff dynamics of the Carson River are difficult to simulate by the
employed machine learning models that lack a memory (or storage)
component. However, by including the one-antecedent observed base
′ ′
and surface flows (i.e., Qtg− 1 and Qts− 1) to the input structure, we obtained
significant increases in the performances of the models in the
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Journal of Hydrology 564 (2018) 266–282
forecasting scheme. The observed flow at time step t −1 can be con-
sidered as a representative of the memory or water storage in the
system and is the integral response of the system for a specific combi-
nation of storages (Serinaldi et al., 2014). Since the employed machine
learning models do not have an individual memory component related
to dynamics, including the one-antecedent discharge value can act as a
memory of the system that is a representative of the specific response of
the catchment.
5. Future directions of research
To improve the simulation capabilities of the machine learning
models, in future work, two techniques can be integrated; (1) pre-
processing methods such as singular spectrum analysis (Lisi et al., 1995;
Marques et al., 2006), and (2) integrating a multi-model ensemble
technique (Araghinejad et al., 2011; Duan et al., 2007). In the former
approach, streamflow time series can be decomposed into low and high-
frequency components that represent a specific level of the temporal
characteristics of streamflow. Also, as reported by Danandeh Mehr et al.
(2013), the wavelet decomposition method as a pre-processing tech-
nique can successfully overcome non-stationarity in streamflow, and
the obtained decomposed parts of the original series represent a specific
time feature of the original series which could be helpful for simulation.
A multi-model ensemble technique can also be useful for improving
H. Tongal, M.J. Booij Journal of Hydrology 564 (2018) 266–282

Fig. 4. Simulated and observed hydrographs and scatter diagrams of the Sacramento River for the validation period.

performances of the machine learning models. In this approach, addi-
tional simulation models that belong to the same class of models or
other models that are successful in capturing different aspects of
streamflow dynamics can be used jointly. Before applying a multi-
model ensemble technique, some robust feature extraction methods in
addition to clustering analysis can be applied to identify different hy-
drological processes (Nourani, 2017). However, it should be noted that
additional uncertainty sources could be introduced by using different
models in the multi-model ensemble technique in addition to un-
certainty sources of input and model parameters. The uncertainty
analysis is beyond the scope of this study and since the number of
parameters and complexity of model structures do not have a direct
relationship with the goodness of fit and the uncertainty range we
cannot reach a conclusion about the predictive uncertainty of the
models. However, the number of parameters could have a more sig-
nificant contribution than the model structure uncertainty (Tian et al.,
2014). In this study, ANN is the most complex model structure and has
the highest number of parameters, i.e. weights and biases. Further,
Tongal and Booij (2017) showed that parametric uncertainty could be
closely related to the dynamics of streamflow. A possible higher

Table 4
Performance indices obtained from the simulation models for all rivers for the calibration period without base flow separation.
North Fork River Chehalis River Carson River Sacramento River

SVR ANN RF SVR ANN RF SVR ANN RF SVR ANN RF

RMSE 2.21 2.05 1.98 1.71 1.50 1.74 1.01 1.18 1.01 3.29 2.60 2.59
NSE 0.62 0.67 0.70 0.91 0.93 0.90 0.56 0.40 0.56 0.59 0.75 0.75
KGE 0.80 0.84 0.84 0.90 0.95 0.92 0.71 0.33 0.41 0.67 0.75 0.78
VE 0.56 0.54 0.62 0.75 0.81 0.81 0.55 0.39 0.50 0.56 0.58 0.64
d 0.90 0.91 0.92 0.98 0.98 0.98 0.91 0.71 0.79 0.86 0.92 0.92
PI −0.38 −0.20 −0.11 0.22 0.39 0.19 −13.46 −18.78 −13.59 −0.99 −0.24 −0.23

Bold numbers indicate the best value of the considered performance indices for the rivers.

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H. Tongal, M.J. Booij Journal of Hydrology 564 (2018) 266–282

Table 5
Performance indices obtained from the simulation models for all rivers for the validation period without base flow separation.
North Fork River Chehalis River Carson River Sacramento River

SVR ANN RF SVR ANN RF SVR ANN RF SVR ANN RF

RMSE 1.71 2.06 1.97 1.47 1.08 1.08 0.78 0.58 0.50 2.27 2.12 1.85
NSE 0.55 0.34 0.40 0.83 0.91 0.91 0.14 0.54 0.65 0.64 0.69 0.76
KGE 0.71 0.51 0.41 0.89 0.93 0.92 0.21 0.61 0.55 0.78 0.64 0.81
VE 0.34 0.24 0.28 0.63 0.76 0.79 0.25 0.34 0.40 0.55 0.45 0.65
d 0.87 0.84 0.86 0.96 0.98 0.98 0.85 0.84 0.87 0.89 0.90 0.93
PI −0.08 −0.58 −0.44 −0.30 0.30 0.30 −19.21 −9.91 −7.34 −0.13 0.01 0.25

Bold numbers indicate the best value of the considered performance indices for the rivers.

(a) North Fork River with SVR (b) Chehalis River with RF

(c) Carson River with SVR* (d) Sacramento River with SVR

Fig. 5. Comparison of performance indices with and without base flow separation of the best simulation models during the validation period with base flow
separation. *The PI index was scaled by dividing by the absolute smallest PI value (i.e., 19.21). **NRMSE indicates the normalized RMSE with the observed discharge
of the considered river.

Table 6
Performance indices obtained from the forecast models for all rivers for the calibration period with base flow separation.
North Fork River Chehalis River Carson River Sacramento River

SVR ANN RF SVR ANN RF SVR ANN RF SVR ANN RF

RMSE 1.19 1.19 1.19 1.19 0.86 0.91 0.26 0.23 0.38 2.65 1.66 1.57
NSE 0.89 0.89 0.89 0.95 0.98 0.97 0.97 0.98 0.94 0.74 0.90 0.91
KGE 0.93 0.93 0.94 0.96 0.97 0.97 0.98 0.98 0.81 0.73 0.90 0.85
VE 0.85 0.86 0.88 0.86 0.89 0.91 0.89 0.91 0.83 0.80 0.85 0.87
d 0.97 0.97 0.97 0.99 0.99 0.99 0.99 0.99 0.98 0.91 0.97 0.97
PI 0.60 0.60 0.60 0.62 0.80 0.78 0.04 0.23 −1.10 −0.29 0.50 0.55

Bold numbers indicate the best value of the considered performance indices for the rivers.

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H. Tongal, M.J. Booij Journal of Hydrology 564 (2018) 266–282

Table 7
Performance indices obtained from the forecast models for all rivers for the validation period with base flow separation.
North Fork River Chehalis River Carson River Sacramento River

SVR ANN RF SVR ANN RF SVR ANN RF SVR ANN RF

RMSE 0.86 0.79 0.89 0.91 0.65 0.51 0.18 0.16 0.23 1.33 1.25 1.18
NSE 0.89 0.90 0.88 0.94 0.97 0.98 0.95 0.96 0.93 0.88 0.89 0.90
KGE 0.88 0.94 0.92 0.93 0.97 0.98 0.94 0.98 0.79 0.90 0.88 0.90
VE 0.79 0.82 0.85 0.82 0.86 0.92 0.82 0.88 0.73 0.83 0.86 0.88
d 0.97 0.97 0.97 0.98 0.99 0.99 0.99 0.99 0.98 0.97 0.97 0.97
PI 0.72 0.77 0.70 0.51 0.75 0.84 −0.07 0.14 −0.70 0.61 0.66 0.69

Bold numbers indicate the best value of the considered performance indices for the rivers.

prediction uncertainty due to parametric uncertainty can be obtained
for streamflow that has a high coefficient of variation showing complex
hydrograph features with fluctuations in rising and falling limbs (i.e.
North Fork River with ANN model), and vice versa, which needs a
thorough analysis. The outcomes of this study are case-sensitive and
including predictive uncertainty analysis may change or support the
reported results herein. In a future study, we also aim to investigate the
prediction uncertainty resulting from the input, model structure and
parameters for different lead times by employing the generalized like-
lihood uncertainty estimation method (see Tian et al. (2014); Tongal
and Booij (2017)).
In conclusion, the forecasting capabilities of the developed models
are more accurate and reliable than the simulation capabilities.
However, it should be noted that Bozorg-Haddad et al. (2016) found an
opposite result where simulation and forecasting ANN models of
monthly runoff were developed by considering the combination of
temperature, evapotranspiration, precipitation and discharge and their
antecedent values on a monthly scale. They found better simulation
results than forecasting results. The model structure, utilization of dif-
ferent optimization algorithms, different time scales and consideration
of different catchments could lead to such a difference. For instance, in
their study, the best model structures consist of two hidden layers, and
the authors indicated that one hidden layer is insufficient for simulation
and forecasting in their case study in contrast to our finding. Their best
simulation and forecasting models with two hidden layers include re-
spectively 18–10 and 10–24 neurons which is a rather high number.
Also, they used different model structures for the simulation and fore-
casting which makes the comparison questionable. However, it should
be noted that there is still some room for improvement of our fore-
casting models, since these have the same model structure (i.e. the same
number of hidden neurons) as the simulation models. Thus, there is a
need for further investigation of the forecasting capabilities of machine
learning models for various catchments that have different hydro-cli-
matic features.
The results obtained by Taormina et al. (2015) indicated that the
base flow separation method did not improve the forecasting cap-
abilities of artificial neural networks and extreme learning machines for
nine different gauging stations in the United States. They employed two
different approaches for forecasting purposes that use base flow se-
paration where (1) the base flow separation and model parameters are
optimized through global optimization and (2) the recession parameter
is not estimated during the optimization process similarly to our study.
They reported that the second approach yield similar and in some cases
better results than the former one. Further, optimization of the reces-
sion parameter gave substantially smaller base flow index parameters
than the recommended values for most of the examined watersheds. As
the authors mentioned, this result indicated that setting the filter
parameters according to expert knowledge could result in accurate base
flow separation. In this study, we employed an exhaustive-grid search
optimization that is quite time-consuming to tune the structures and
parameters of the machine learning models. However, recently, popu-
lation-based optimization algorithms have been successfully applied to

Fig. 6. Annual hydrographs of the rivers for the period 1948–2003.

278
H. Tongal, M.J. Booij
increase the forecasting capabilities of data-driven models (Chau, 2007;
Chen et al., 2015; Wu and Chau, 2006). Further, as indicated by Chau
(2007), combining the advantages of a global optimization method
such as particle swarm optimization and local fast convergence of Le-
venberg-Marquardt algorithm could increase the forecasting perfor-
mance of a data-driven model in a much shorter time. Investigating this
paradigm could lessen the enormous computational costs and time for
the simulation scheme with the base flow separation method in this
study. To the best of our knowledge, there is not any study that applied
population-based optimization algorithms in the simulation of stream-
flows with data-driven models. Therefore, it would be valuable to in-
vestigate the applicability of population-based optimization methods in
simulation of streamflows coupled with base flow separation in a future
study.
6. Conclusion
In the context of water resources planning and management, effi-
cient utilization of water resources requires accurate and successful
simulation and forecasting of streamflow. In this study, a simulation
framework has been developed to explore efficiencies of different ma-
chine learning methods (i.e. support vector machines, artificial neural
networks and random forest) in streamflow simulation for four rivers in
the United States. In this simulation framework, we analyzed the per-
formances of SVR, ANN, and RF coupled with a one-parameter base
flow separation method proposed by Eckhardt (2005). To the authors’
knowledge, so far these models have not been tested and compared for
simulation of streamflow by coupling with a base flow separation
method. The simulation with base flow separation mainly indicated
that:
1. The RF model performed worse than SVR and ANN in the calibration
period. The ANN model performed best in three basins (i.e. North
Fork, Chehalis, Sacramento rivers) while the SVR model was best in
the Carson River.
2. We found some improvements in model performances in the vali-
dation period compared to the calibration period. In the validation
period, SVR and RF performed better than the ANN model due to
poor generalization capabilities of the ANN model.
3. All models yield the worst simulation results for the Carson River,
particularly the RF model. This could be associated with the com-
plex streamflow dynamics resulting from the lag between tem-
perature and snowmelt runoff. The SVR gave acceptable results for
this river.
We also analyzed whether the base flow separation method im-
proved the simulation performances of the machine learning models.
This was achieved by employing the simulation framework by only
using the simulated discharge — it was not separated into base flow and
direct flow. We concluded that the base flow separation improved the
simulation capabilities of the machine learning methods except for the
RF model for the Carson River. Hence, the use of hydrological knowl-
edge such as base flow separation improved the simulation results.
Finally, to differentiate the simulation and forecasting capabilities, we
employed a forecasting scheme. In this scheme, we only changed the
input structure of the models by keeping the model parameters the
same as in the simulation scheme. It was found that the highest increase
in performance was obtained for the RF model. Also, the highest in-
creases in the model performances were observed for the Carson River.
Some limitations and future research directions related to the pro-
posed methodology are:
1. Inevitably, there are several uncertainty sources such as input,
model and parameter uncertainty that contribute to uncertainty in
simulated values. Thus, in future work, there is a need for quanti-
fying the uncertainty in simulated values obtained from the different
279
Journal of Hydrology 564 (2018) 266–282
machine learning methods. As recommended by Benninga et al.
(2017), the reliability of streamflow forecasts can be enlarged by
including uncertainties in the hydrological model parameters and
the initial conditions, and by enlarging the dispersion of the me-
teorological input forecasts. The reported results herein are case-
sensitive and can change by including the uncertainty analysis.
2. We found some improvements in model performances in the vali-
dation period compared to the calibration period. In addition to the
other discussed issues, this could also result from the relatively small
length of the validation period in comparison to the calibration
period. Therefore, additional study is required to estimate the effects
of data length of calibration and validation periods on the results.
3. The base flow recession parameter was assumed to be constant to
avoid additional computational costs. In addition to employing
other types of base flow separation methods, the cost-effective po-
pulation-based optimization algorithms could also be integrated into
the proposed methodology.
4. Due to the limited number of hydro-meteorological variables, we
employed the Hargreaves method to estimate potential evapo-
transpiration. More physically-based radiation-based methods can
be employed to check additional performance improvement.
5. In this study, we only simulated and forecasted one-day ahead
streamflow values. Investigation of simulation and forecasting cap-
abilities of machine learning models for additional lead times and
comparison with conceptual models would be interesting.
6. To improve the simulation capabilities of machine learning
methods, pre-processing methods such as singular spectrum and
wavelet analyses could be integrated into the proposed metho-
dology.
7. Finally, for better simulation results especially in snow-dominated
basins, one can integrate a multi-model ensemble modelling tech-
nique into the proposed approach by using additional simulation
models that are successful in capturing different aspects of stream-
flow dynamics.
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