On the data synergy effect of large-sample multi-physics catchment modeling with machine learning

<p>Watersheds in the world are often perceived as being unique from each other, requiring customized study for each basin. Models uniquely built for each watershed, in general, cannot be leveraged for other watersheds. It is also a customary practice in hydrology and related geoscientific disciplines to divide the whole domain into multiple regimes and study each region separately, in an approach sometimes called regionalization or stratification. However, in the era of big-data machine learning, models can learn across regions and identify commonalities and differences. In this presentation, we first show that machine learning can derive highly functional continental-scale models for streamflow, evapotranspiration, and water quality variables. Next, through two hydrologic examples (soil moisture and streamflow), we argue that unification can often significantly outperform stratification, and systematically examine an effect we call data synergy, where the results of the DL models improved when data were pooled together from characteristically different regions and variables. In fact, the performance of the DL models benefited from some diversity in training data even with similar data quantity. However, allowing heterogeneous training data makes eligible much larger training datasets, which is an inherent advantage of DL. We also share our recent developments in advancing hydrologic deep learning and machine learning driven parameterization.</p>

Application of deep recurrent neural networks for modeling surface and sub-surface flow at high temporal resolution

<p>Recent increase in climate change has resulted in rise of hydrologic extreme events, which demands better understanding of flow patterns in catchment. Modeling surface and sub-surface flow at high temporal resolution helps to understand catchment dynamics. In this study, we simulated surface and sub-surface flow in a Laotian catchment at 6-minute resolution. We used one physically based model called Hydrological Simulated Program-FORTRAN (HSPF) and developed two deep learning-based models. One deep learning model consisted of only one long short-term memory (LSTM), whereas the other model simulated processes in each hydrologic response unit (HRU) by defining one separate LSTM for each HRU. The models consider environmental data as well as changing landuse in catchment and predict surface and sub-surface flows. Our results show that simple LSTM model outperformed other models for surface runoff prediction, whereas the HRU-based LSTM model better predicted patterns and slopes in sub-surface flow in comparison with other models.</p>

Assessment of Surface Moisture in the Catchment Area on the Base of Modelling the Hydrological Properties of Soils

The research is dedicated to estimation of soil moisture before storm rain flood for calculations of water erosion on the catchment. Modeling of hydrological properties of soils is used for characteristic of the soil moisture. The model based at technologies of multiple nonlinear regression, as well as the method of artificial neural networks.