Water quality prediction using machine learning methods

Abstract This study investigates the performance of artificial intelligence techniques including artificial neural network (ANN), group method of data handling (GMDH) and support vector machine (SVM) for predicting water quality components of Tireh River located in the southwest of Iran. To develop the ANN and SVM, different types of transfer and kernel functions were tested, respectively. Reviewing the results of ANN and SVM indicated that both models have suitable performance for predicting water quality components. During the process of development of ANN and SVM, it was found that tansig and RBF as transfer and kernel functions have the best performance among the tested functions. Comparison of outcomes of GMDH model with other applied models shows that although this model has acceptable performance for predicting the components of water quality, its accuracy is slightly less than ANN and SVM. The evaluation of the accuracy of the applied models according to the error indexes declared that SVM was the most accurate model. Examining the results of the models showed that all of them had some over-estimation properties. By evaluating the results of the models based on the DDR index, it was found that the lowest DDR value was related to the performance of the SVM model.