Wavelet-based multi station disaggregation of rainfall time series in mountainous regions

Hybrid models development by combining the data-driven method of artificial neural network (ANN) and wavelet decomposition for disaggregation of rainfall time series is the purpose of this paper. In this study, for disaggregating the Tabriz and Sahand rain-gauges time series, according to nonlinear characteristics of observed time scales, a wavelet-artificial neural network (WANN) hybrid model was suggested. For this purpose, 17 years of daily data of four rain-gauges and monthly data of six rain-gauges from the mountainous basin of Urmia Lake were decomposed with wavelet transform and then using mutual information and correlation coefficient criteria, the sub-series were ranked and superior sub-series were used as input data of ANN model for disaggregating the monthly rainfall time series to the daily time series. Results obtained by the WANN disaggregation model were compared with the results of ANN and classic multiple linear regression (MLR) models. The efficiency of the WANN model compared with the ANN and MLR models at validation stage in the optimized case for Tabriz rain-gauge showed up to a 22 and 41.2% increase and in the optimized case for Sahand rain-gauge it showed up to a 21.1 and 40.8% increase, respectively.