Hydrological time series modeling: A comparison between adaptive neuro-fuzzy, neural network and autoregressive techniques

Time series modeling is necessary for the planning and management of reservoirs. More recently, the soft computing techniques have been used in hydrological modeling and forecasting. In this study, the potential of artificial neural networks and neuro-fuzzy system in monthly reservoir inflow forecasting are examined by developing and comparing monthly reservoir inflow prediction models, based on autoregressive (AR), artificial neural networks (ANNs) and adaptive neural-based fuzzy inference system (ANFIS). To take care the effect of monthly periodicity in the flow data, cyclic terms are also included in the ANN and ANFIS models. Working with time series flow data of the Sutlej River at Bhakra Dam, India, several ANN and adaptive neuro-fuzzy models are trained with different input vectors. To evaluate the performance of the selected ANN and adaptive neural fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) models, comparison is made with the autoregressive (AR) models. The ANFIS model trained with the input data vector including previous inflows and cyclic terms of monthly periodicity has shown a significant improvement in the forecast accuracy in comparison with the ANFIS models trained with the input vectors considering only previous inflows. In all cases ANFIS gives more accurate forecast than the AR and ANN models. The proposed ANFIS model coupled with the cyclic terms is shown to provide better representation of the monthly inflow forecasting for planning and operation of reservoir. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.