Groundwater levels forecasting using machine learning models: A case study of the groundwater region 10 at Karst Belt, South Africa

• Published in: Systems and soft computing Vol. 5; p. 200049
• Main Authors: Aderemi, Banjo A., Olwal, Thomas O., Ndambuki, Julius M., Rwanga, Sophia S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01-12-2023; Elsevier
• Subjects: Artificial intelligence; Forecasting model; Groundwater levels; Machine learning; Neural networks; Rainfall; Regression; Temperature; Time series; Groundwater levels; Temperature; Neural networks; Machine learning; Time series; Rainfall; Regression; Forecasting model; Artificial intelligence
• ISSN: 2772-9419; 2772-9419
• DOI: 10.1016/j.sasc.2023.200049

•Review of existing Groundwater level Machine Learning model.•The use of ML models such as Regressions Models, Deep Auto-Regressive model, and Nonlinear Autoregressive Neural Network with External Input (NARX) to forecast groundwater levels.•Data processing.•Comparison of the used model.•Forecasting of Groundwater level.
The crucial role which groundwater resource plays in our environment and the overall well-being of all living things can not be underestimated. Nonetheless, mismanagement of resources, over-exploitation, inadequate supply of surface water and pollution have led to severe drought and an overall drop in groundwater resources’ levels over the past decades. To address this, a groundwater flow model and several mathematical data-driven models have been developed for forecasting groundwater levels. However, there is a problem of unavailability and scarcity of the on-site input data needed by the data-driven models to forecast the groundwater level. Furthermore, as a result of the dynamics and stochastic characteristics of groundwater, there is a need for an appropriate, accurate and reliable forecasting model to solve these challenges. Over the years, the broad application of Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) models are gaining attraction as an alternative solution for forecasting groundwater levels. Against this background, this article provides an overview of forecasting methods for predicting groundwater levels. Also, this article uses ML models such as Regressions Models, Deep Auto-Regressive models, and Nonlinear Autoregressive Neural Networks with External Input (NARX) to forecast groundwater levels using the groundwater region 10 at Karst belt in South Africa as a case study. This was done using Python Mx. Version 1.9.1., and MATLAB R2022a machine learning toolboxes. Moreover, the Coefficient of Determination (R2);, Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Mutual Information gain, Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE), Mean Squared Error (MSE), Mean Absolute Error (MAE), and the Mean Absolute Scaled Error (MASE)) models were the forecasting statistical performance metrics used to assess the predictive performance of these models. The results obtained showed that NARX and Support Vector Machine (SVM) have higher performance metrics and accuracy compared to other models used in this study.