Modeling of Suspended Sediment Concentration at Kasol in India Using ANN, Fuzzy Logic, and Decision Tree Algorithms

The prediction of the sediment loading generated within a watershed is an important input in the design and management of water resources projects. High variability of hydro-climatic factors with sediment generation makes the modelling of the sediment process cumbersome and tedious. The methods for the estimation of sediment concentration based on the properties of flow and sediment have limitations attributed to the simplification of important parameters and boundary conditions. Under such circumstances, soft computing approaches have proven to be an efficient tool in modelling the sediment concentration. The focus of this paper is to present the development of models using Artificial Neural Network (ANN) with back propagation and Levenberg-Maquardt algorithms, radial basis function (RBF), Fuzzy Logic, and decision tree algorithms such as M5 and REPTree for predicting the suspended sediment concentration at Kasol, upstream of the Bhakra reservoir, located in the Sutlej basin in northern India. The input vector to the various models using different algorithms was derived considering the statistical properties such as auto-correlation function, partial auto-correlation, and cross-correlation function of the time series. It was found that the M5 model performed well compared to other soft computing techniques such as ANN, fuzzy logic, radial basis function, and REPTree investigated in this study, and results of the M5 model indicate that all ranges of sediment concentration values were simulated fairly well. This study also suggests that M5 model trees, which are analogous to piecewise linear functions, have certain advantages over other soft computing techniques because they offer more insight into the generated model, are acceptable to decision makers, and always converge. Further, the M5 model tree offers explicit expressions for use by field engineers.