Application of Wavelet Neural Network Model in Prediction of Groundwater Resources (Case Study, Lorestan Province, Iran)

The phenomenon of the exploitation of groundwater recently has caused a sharp decline in groundwater levels, resulting in both subsidence and desertification caused by the groundwater withdrawal. Thus, reliable prediction of groundwater level has been an important component in sustainable water resources management. In this study, a data-driven prediction wavelet neural network model (WNN) was proposed for groundwater level in Azna-Aligodarz, Dourod-Brojerd, Delfan, Selseleh plain forecasting, and the results were compared with the artificial neural network. Parameters including precipitation, temperature, flow rate and water level balance during the period of the previous month were used as input of the model and level of the water table in each period as the output of the model through monthly scale (2002-2019) were selected. The criterion of the correlation coefficient, Root-Mean-Square-Error and average absolute error and coefficient of Nash Sutcliff for evaluating and the comparison of performance models were used.  The results of the hydrograph analysis indicated that the increase of rainfall has an effect on groundwater resources, and also the findings evaluation of criteria showed that WNN has better performance and less error than the artificial neural network.