Modelling long-term groundwater fluctuations by extreme learning machine using hydro-climatic data

The ability of the extreme learning machine (ELM) is investigated in modelling groundwater level (GWL) fluctuations using hydro-climatic data obtained for Hormozgan Province, southern Iran. Monthly precipitation, evaporation and previous GWL data were used as model inputs. Developed ELM models were compared with the artificial neural networks (ANN) and radial basis function (RBF) models. The models were also compared with the autoregressive moving average (ARMA), and evaluated using mean square errors, mean absolute error, Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency and determination coefficient statistics. All the data-driven models had better accuracy than the ARMA, and the ELM model’s performance was superior to that of the ANN and RBF models in modelling 1-, 2- and 3-month-ahead GWL. The RMSE accuracy of the ANN model was increased by 37, 34 and 52% using ELM for the 1-, 2- and 3-month-ahead forecasts, respectively. The accuracy of the ELM models was found to be less sensitive to increasing lead time.