Flood forecasting using an improved NARX network based on wavelet analysis coupled with uncertainty analysis by Monte Carlo simulations: a case study of Taihu Basin, China

Reliable flood forecasting can provide scientific basis for flood risk assessment and water resources management, and the Taihu water level forecasting with high precision is essential for flood control in the Taihu Basin. To increase the prediction accuracy, a coupling model (DWT-iNARX) is established by combining the discrete wavelet transformation (DWT) with improved nonlinear autoregressive with exogenous inputs network (iNARX), for predicting the daily Taihu water level during the flood season under different forecast periods. And the DWT-iNARX model is compared with the back-propagation neural network (BP) and iNARX models to assess its capability in prediction. Meanwhile, we propose an uncertainty analysis method based on Monte Carlo simulations (MCS) for quantifying model uncertainty and performing probabilistic water level forecast. The results show that three models achieve good simulation results with higher accuracy when the forecast period is short, such as 1–3 days. In overall performance, iNARX and DWT-iNARX models show superiority in comparison with the BP model, while the DWT-iNARX model yields the best performance among all the other models. The research results can provide a certain reference for the water level forecast of the Taihu Lake.