Simulation and prediction of monthly accumulated runoff,based on several neural network models under poor data availability

Most previous research on areas with abundant rainfall shows that simulations using rainfall-runoff modes have a very high prediction accuracy and applicability when using a back-propagation(BP), feed-forward, multilayer perceptron artificial neural network(ANN). However, in runoff areas with relatively low rainfall or a dry climate, more studies are needed. In these areas—of which oasis-plain areas are a particularly good example—the existence and development of runoff depends largely on that which is generated from alpine regions. Quantitative analysis of the uncertainty of runoff simulation under climate change is the key to improving the utilization and management of water resources in arid areas. Therefore, in this context, three kinds of BP feed-forward, three-layer ANNs with similar structure were chosen as models in this paper.Taking the oasis–plain region traverse by the Qira River Basin in Xinjiang, China, as the research area, the monthly accumulated runoff of the Qira River in the next month was simulated and predicted. The results showed that the training precision of a compact wavelet neural network is low; but from the forecasting results, it could be concluded that the training algorithm can better reflect the whole law of samples. The traditional artificial neural network(TANN) model and radial basis-function neural network(RBFNN) model showed higher accuracy in the training and prediction stage. However, the TANN model, more sensitive to the selection of input variables, requires a large number of numerical simulations to determine the appropriate input variables and the number of hidden-layer neurons. Hence, The RBFNN model is more suitable for the study of such problems. And it can be extended to other similar research arid-oasis areas on the southern edge of the Kunlun Mountains and provides a reference for sustainable water-resource management of arid-oasis areas.