Application of a New Hybrid Deep Learning Model That Considers Temporal and Feature Dependencies in Rainfall–Runoff Simulation

Runoff forecasting is important for water resource management. Although deep learning models have substantially improved the accuracy of runoff prediction, the temporal and feature dependencies between rainfall–runoff time series elements have not been effectively exploited. In this work, we propose a new hybrid deep learning model to predict hourly streamflow: SA-CNN-LSTM (self-attention, convolutional neural network, and long short-term memory network). The advantages of CNN and LSTM in terms of data extraction from time series data are combined with the self-attention mechanism. By considering interdependences of the rainfall–runoff sequence between timesteps and between features, the prediction performance of the model is enhanced. We explored the performance of the model in the Mazhou Basin, China; we compared its performance with the performances of LSTM, CNN, ANN (artificial neural network), RF (random forest), SA-LSTM, and SA-CNN. Our analysis demonstrated that SA-CNN-LSTM demonstrated robust prediction with different flood magnitudes and different lead times; it was particularly effective within lead times of 1–5 h. Additionally, the performance of the self-attention mechanism with LSTM and CNN alone, respectively, was improved at some lead times; however, the overall performance was unstable. In contrast, the hybrid model integrating CNN, LSTM, and the self-attention mechanism exhibited better model performance and robustness. Overall, this study considers the importance of temporal and feature dependencies in hourly runoff prediction, then proposes a hybrid deep learning model to improve the performances of conventional models in runoff prediction.