Soft Computing Techniques for Rainfall-Runoff Modeling and Analysis in River Basin

Pradeep Kumar Mishra () and Rashmi Dwivedi ()
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Pradeep Kumar Mishra: VIT Bhopal University
Rashmi Dwivedi: Sri Satya Sai University of Technology and Medical Sciences

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), 2025, vol. 39, issue 8, No 13, 3859-3881

Abstract: Abstract Rainfall-runoff (R-R) modelling is crucial for hydrological analysis and water resources management. However, accurately simulating the complex and nonlinear relationship between rainfall and runoff using conventional methods is often challenging. Therefore, soft computing methods, which can handle uncertainty and imprecision, have been widely applied for rainfall-runoff modelling. This paper compares the performance of various soft computing methods in river basin rainfall-runoff modelling, including Backpropagation Neural Network (BPN), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Genetic Algorithm (GA), Radial Basis Function (RBF), and Fuzzy Logic (FL). Monthly rainfall and runoff data from four river basins in India are used as case studies. The results show that BPN is outstanding compared to the other methods in accuracy and robustness, followed by RBF and SVM. FL and GA have relatively lower performance but provide more flexibility and interpretability for rainfall-runoff modelling. The study concludes that soft computing methods are effective and reliable tools for river basin rainfall-runoff modelling analysis, and they can be further improved by incorporating more hydrological knowledge and data. During the testing period, all models exhibited a notable average deviation of approximately 13.1% (BPN), 43.6% (RBF), 19.2% (FL), 23.5% (SVM), and 19.2% (GA) from the actual values.

Keywords: Soft computing; River basin; Rainfall-runoff modeling; Analysis; Soft computig methods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/s11269-025-04134-5

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