Neural network prediction of a storm surge

The occurrence of storm surge does not only destroy the resident's lives, but also cause the severe flooding in coastal areas. Therefore, accurate prediction of storm surge is an important task during the coming typhoon. Conventional numerical methods and experienced methods for storm surge prediction have been developed in the past, but it is still a complex ocean engineering problem which many factors, including the central pressure of typhoon, the speed of the typhoon, the heavy rainfall, coastal topography and local features influence the variation of storm surge. In fact, this problem is still a complex nonlinear relationship that can not solved efficiently by these two methods. Therefore, this paper presents an application of the neural network for forecasting the storm surge. The original data of Jiangjyun station in Taiwan will be used to test the performance of the present model. The results indicate that the neural network can be efficiently forecasted storm surge using the four input factors, including the wind velocity, wind direction, pressure and harmonic analysis tidal level. (C) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.