An improved neural network approach to the determination of aquifer parameters

In this paper, an artificial neural network (ANN) approach to the determination of aquifer parameters is developed. The approach is based on the combination of an ANN and the Theis solution. The proposed ANN approach has advantages over the existing ANN approach. It avoids inappropriate setting of a trained range. It also determines the aquifer parameters more accurately and needs less required training time. Testing the existing and the proposed ANN approaches by 1000 sets of synthetic data also demonstrates these advantages. As to the comparison between the proposed ANN approach and the type-curve graphical method, an application to actual time-drawdown data shows that the proposed ANN approach determines the aquifer parameters more precisely. The proposed ANN approach is recommended as an alternative to the type-curve graphical method and the existing ANN approach. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.