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Past, present and prospect of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) based model for
sediment transport prediction
PII: S0022-1694(16)30478-4
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2016.07.048
Reference: HYDROL 21434
Please cite this article as: Abdulmohsin Afan, H., El-shafie, A., Hanna Melini Wan Mohtar, W., Mundher Yaseen,
Z., Past, present and prospect of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) based model for sediment transport prediction, Journal
of Hydrology (2016), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2016.07.048
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Past, present and prospect of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) based model for sediment
transport prediction
Haitham Abdulmohsin Afan* 1, Ahmed El-shafie1,2 , Wan Hanna Melini Wan Mohtar1, Zaher
Mundher Yaseen1
1
Civil and Structural Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment,
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
2
Civil Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia
*Corresponding author
Abstract
An accurate model for sediment prediction is a priority for all hydrological researchers. Many
sediment. These methods are unable to understand the behaviour of sediment transport in rivers
due to the complexity, noise, non-stationarity, and dynamism of the sediment pattern. In the past
two decades, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and computational approaches have become a
remarkable tool for developing an accurate model. These approaches are considered a powerful
tool for solving any non-linear model, as they can deal easily with a large number of data and
sophisticated models. This paper is a review of all AI approaches that have been applied in
sediment transport. In addition, the review identifies major challenges and opportunities for
modeling.
1 Introduction
Suspended sediment in water streams can act as a physical pollutant by increasing turbidity or as
a chemical pollutant, being the primary carrier of adsorbed chemicals, particularly for finer size
particles (Doğan et al., 2007). The estimation of erosion and transported sediment is accelerated
due to mostly anthropogenic activities such as deforestation, poor agricultural practices and
massive development. The transportation of sediment to and through the river system consists of
both flow and sediment should be taken into account. Sediment is transported from its original
position as incipient sediment motion and is kept in suspension due to turbulence. At all stages of
the transportation process, from the initial detachment of sediment particles to the arrival of
contributes to this complexity. There are several laborious field works in the estimation and
Thus, the accurate prediction of the total suspended sediment flux, taking into account the
combination of all components, is highly complicated. Despite the empirical formula established
by several researchers, for example, Lane-Kalinske (1941) and Bagnold (1966), it is extremely
difficult for an engineer to select an appropriate equation for specific case study. Furthermore,
none of these equations has gained universal acceptance for suspended sediment prediction.
Thus, an accurate forecasting of the river suspended sediment load, based on local data, is a
striking alternative and possibly plays a significant role in enhancing the prediction of suspended
sediment for specific cases. Accurate prediction of sediment load would be beneficial and useful
for a wide range of hydraulics and engineering designs such as (i) sediment transport in the river,
(ii) design of the dead storage of a dam, (iii) design of stable channels, (iv) estimation of
3
aggradation and degradation at bridge piers, (v) prediction of sand and gravel mining effects on
river bed equilibrium, (vi) determination of environmental impact assessment, and (vii) dredging
Most recently, the AI and computational methods have shown the ability to overcome the
sediment loads. Artificial Intelligence approaches are characterized by having the ability to solve
non-linear models and easily handling the large number of data and sophisticated models. As is
well known, sediment transport computing is one of the most difficult problems in water
resources engineering. The estimation of sediment load does not only rely on water discharge in
rivers, but also on many characteristics of the river itself and these characteristics experience
temporal changes. In recent years, there has been noticed a significant rise in the number of data
solve and handle complexity and noise data problems (Nourani et al., 2014). Specifically, in the
field of sediment prediction and forecasting, there are many AI techniques and methods that have
been used such as artificial neural network (ANN), support vector machine (SVM), fuzzy logic
a thorough review of the research into all data-driven applications is needed. The main focus was
on relevant research studies undertaken within the past two decades. There has in recent years
that AI has a high potential for estimating localized suspended sediment characteristics based on
4
individual water stream behaviour. As such, this review aimed to introduce how effectively the
particularly in relation to the external or internal structure of the AI models, input variables and
the efficiency of AI integrated modelling. This paper is structured as follows: section 2 describes
the comprehensive ANN application in suspended sediment modeling and the application of the
FL method is presented in section 3. The application of SVM and the evolutionary computing
model, is reviewed in section 5. The evaluation and assessment of previous studies is presented
in section 6. Recommendations for future research are discussed in section 7 and the last section
(Figure 1)
Artificial neural networks are data processing, modeling techniques which are generally used for
complex featured variables. Haykin and Lippmann (1994) defined ANN as a massively parallel
resembling biological neural networks of the human brain. ANNs have been developed as a
following rules described by Govindaraju (2000): (i) Information processing occurs at many
single elements called neurons; (ii) Signals are passed between nodes through connecting links;
(iii) Each connection link has an associated weight that represents its connection strength; (iv)
5
Each node typically applies a nonlinear transformation called an activation function to its net
The artificial neural network (ANN) has the ability to learn the exact behaviour between
the inputs and outputs from the examples without any kind of physical involvement. Also, it has
a superior characteristic of being able to extract the exact pattern between the input and output
variables without any additional explanation (Mustafa et al., 2012). ANN models have been
successfully applied to many tasks in hydrology, hydraulics and water resources management
such as flood forecasting, groundwater level forecasting and rainfall-runoff prediction (Abrahart
et al., 2004; Campolo et al., 2003; Chang et al., 2014a; Daliakopoulos et al., 2005; El-Shafie et
al., 2011b; El-Shafie et al., 2012; Hsu et al., 1995; Noori and Kalin, 2016; Pan et al., 2013;
Yaseen et al.) . The use of ANN is extended to the suspended sediment estimation, thus there are
a lot of studies that have been applied in sediment transport prediction (Afan et al., 2014;
Ardıçlıoğlu et al., 2007; Bayram et al., 2012; Bayram et al., 2013; Heng and Suetsugi, 2013; Isa,
2014; Jain, 2001; Kisi, 2004; Kisi, 2008; Melesse et al., 2011; Mustafa et al., 2012; Nourani et
al., 2012; Raghuwanshi et al., 2006; Rai and Mathur, 2007; Singh et al., 2013; Sivakumar and
Wallender, 2005; Talebizadeh et al., 2009; Tayfur, 2002; van Maanen et al., 2010). The
performance of these AI models generally are satisfactory and they have been able to correctly
predict the suspended sediment discharge concentration by up to 90%. However, we found that
the obvious variations are in terms of input variables and time scaling used in the models.
Therefore, this article puts an emphasis on the two main aspects mostly considered by previous
studies.
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Any data driven model can be defined on the basis of the connection between the system state
variables (i.e. input, internal, output variables) (Solomatine, 2005). The input layer, the most
important part of the model system, is often manipulated to enhance the performance of the
modeling process. In the field of sediment transport prediction in general there are many
parameters posed as having direct effects on the outcome of sediment discharge or concentration
estimation. Therefore, the researchers employed and tested the effects of input variable variation
in the performance of ANN predictive models. Figure 2 illustrates the structure of neural
network and the common input variables used to predict the suspended sediment load and
concentrations.
(Figure 2)
The first use of AI in the estimation of suspended sediment in rivers was done by Jain
(2001). He developed a conventional sediment rating curve model by using the feed forward
relationship for two sites located on the Mississippi River. The back propagation based on the
generalized delta was used as the training algorithm. Water stage, discharge, and sediment
concentration were used as input data while the output data were the discharge and sediment
concentrations. The number of hidden layers was determined by trial and error. The performance
of FFNN was compared with the conventional curve fitting, where the AI technique was found to
have superior results in comparison to the conventional method. Despite limited data and not
considering the important parameters in sediment transport behaviour such as tractive shear
7
stress and velocity ration, to name a few, the ANN model outperformed the conventional method
and produced good results. As such, due to the limitation in data availability, developing the
sediment transport prediction model based on minimal input is essential and necessary.
Nagy et al. (2002) employed a multilayer feed forward neural network with a back
propagation training algorithm to predict the sediment load in three rivers of the Niobrara River,
the Middle Loup River and the Hii River. Eight input variables of tractive shear stress, velocity
ratio, suspension parameter, longitudinal slope, water depth ratio, Froude number, Reynolds
number and stream width ratio were used where the sediment concentration was the output.
Comparing the results from the artificial neural network with seven popular equations in the
sediment load concentration estimation of Engelund and Hansen (1967), Ackers and White
(1973), Yang (1996), Brownlie (1981), Shen and Hung (1972) and Laursen and Toffaleti (1969))
found that the neural network produced satisfactory results. Also, they concluded that the
conventional equations cannot accomplish an accurate result due to the uncertainty and the
stochastic nature of the sediment transport. Once again, this study relied on several common
parameters as the input pattern for the proposed model. The estimation of sediment transport
behaviour, particularly the suspended sediment, is localized to each specific river. Using similar
successful modelling profiles in another river does not guarantee high certainty of prediction.
The type of input variable is considered the main component necessary to develop an
accurate sediment model, another part of which is important for the researchers to manipulate is
the data partitions. Soft splitting of the data set is an effective technique to improve the
predictive model where the model will be based on sub-groups rather than one group. Kerem
Cigizoglu and Kisi (2006) proposed a method to improve the performance of the neural network
to estimate suspended sediment in rivers. Daily sediment and flow data for the Schuylkill River
8
in the United States were used for a case study. The K-fold partitioning method was used to
divide the data into three sub-groups. Auto-correlation as the initial statistical analysis was
employed to determine the adequate numbers of input data. The data were divided into three
groups and each group was trained individually. The range-dependent neural network (RDNN)
using FFBP was utilized to train and test the data. The study deduced that the range-dependent
neural network (RDNN) produced satisfactory results compared with the traditional ANN
applications where a single network is trained, considering the entire training data set. Actually,
utilizing the K-fold method as one of the cross-validation techniques is a vital step in developing
the ANN model. Cross-validation techniques are usually utilized to assure a similar level of
accuracy when switching from training to the testing session, commonly used for long time
series data. In some cases the cross-validation is eliminated from modelling because the data are
Alp and Cigizoglu (2007) investigated the estimation and forecasting of daily suspended
sediment load with feed-forward back-propagation and radial basis function using the previous
daily rainfall, sediment load and river flow data. They prepared the input layer using three
different combinations of hydro-meteorological data. It was deduced that the learning rate
directly affects the performance of the algorithm in the training stage. Alp and Cigizoglu (2007)
concluded that only rainfall data as input produced unsatisfactory results up to difference than
what was obtained when the flow data was added to the input variables. Also, they found that
FFNN and RBF produced close results when compared with each other.
Rai and Mathur (2007) developed a model for the computation of event-based temporal
variation of sediment yield from the watersheds. The feed forward back propagation neural
network was employed in their study. They used gradient descent algorithm with automated
9
Bayesian regularization in the training. Rainfall, runoff and sediment discharge data were
employed as the input pattern variables. They analyzed the data by using the autocorrelation and
cross-correlation analysis to select the optimal input variables. The results of prediction from the
ANN model were compared with the linear transfer function model. Using multiple performance
criteria such as Nash efficiency (CE), error in time to peak (ETP), error in peak sediment flow
rate (EPS) and error in total sediment yield (ESY), the performance of the ANN model was
Multi-Layer Perceptron with back propagation algorithm was used by Jothiprakash and
Garg (2009) to estimate the volume of sediment retained in a reservoir. Annual rainfall, annual
inflow, and capacity of the reservoir were chosen as input variables. They compared the results
from ANN with conventional regression analysis and concluded that ANN produced better
In light of the above, it could be depicted that most of the proposed sediment prediction
models rely on the advantages of utilizing the neural network methods. The major advantages of
the neural network model are its ability to synthesize algorithms through a learning process and
no prior knowledge of the mathematical details between the input the output. However, there are
several challenges while utilizing ANN methods especially for sediment related phenomena.
The ANN model is localized and must be individually trained for each case. Moreover,
several trial and error procedures must be conducted to define the adequate architecture. In
addition, the training requirement involves large volumes of data. Special attention should be
given to the ANN model in case there is a need to make a certain modification to it, such as
It is known that the prediction of sediment transport phenomena depends on the time series input
variables, where the time series may be presented in several scales such as daily, weekly, ten-
day, monthly, and yearly. The multi-time scale prediction model is considered one of the
important comparative studies in sediment modeling. Agarwal et al. (2005) developed daily,
weekly, ten-day, and monthly rainfall-runoff-sediment (RQS) yield models based on the
multilayer back prorogation neural network (MLBPNN) and linear transfer function. They
applied two different learning processes (Batch-learning and Pattern-learning) to compare the
results for each model. It was found that not only do the results obtained from the pattern-learned
models have better results than the batch-learned models but the time-scale variation proved to
be insignificant and consistently produced better efficiency than the output from the linear
transfer function.
The capability of multi-layer perceptron neural network to estimate and forecast the
suspended sediments in rivers has been investigated by Cigizoglu (2004). Daily mean flow and
suspended sediment data of 29 years (from 1952 to 1981) were used for two stations on the
upstream and downstream of Schuylkill River. Two different sets of input data were applied,
where in the first set, the downstream and upstream sediment data were used as input to forecast
the one day ahead of suspended sediment discharge. The second set was the estimation of
downstream suspended sediment data by using the flow data as input. The correlation between
the flow and sediment data was analysed using the statistical analysis of mean, standard
overall minimum, and overall maximum. The statistical analysis can give a better expectation for
the performance of the model. Cigizoglu (2004) concluded that the data with higher cross-
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correlation and lower skewness can give more satisfactory results (R2 value increased nearly
100% and MSE decreased 35%). Cigizoglu (2004) used conventional methods to compare the
performance of MLP. This study is rather more unique than other studies as the researcher
utilized data taken at both upstream and downstream of the same river. Analysis found that the
use of upstream sediment data gives more accurate results than using the input from downstream.
The MLP model was capable of capturing the non-linearity between the flow and suspended
sediment load, which was evidently displayed compared with the conventional sediment rating
curve.
Melesse et al. (2011) studied the suspended sediment prediction in the rivers by using
artificial neural network with back propagation algorithm. The performance of several AI
techniques such as multiple linear regressions (MLR), multiple non-linear regressions (MNLR)
and autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) were tested. Daily and weekly data over
five years for three big rivers, i.e. Mississippi (1971-1975), Missouri and Rio Grande (1977-
1981) in the USA, were utilized to predict the suspended sediment load. Rainfall, discharge,
antecedent discharge and antecedent sediment load were used as input parameters. The
performance of ANN was assessed in different input combinations of data with a different time
period (i.e. 4, 3 and 2 years of training and 1, 2 and 3 years of testing, respectively). The
comparison of results showed that the performance of three years of training and two years of
testing produced better results than others. The study concluded that the prediction of daily data
was more accurate than weekly, and the performance of ANN for all input combinations was
consistently better than the results from MLR, MNLR and ARIMA.
Cigizoglu and Alp (2006) employed two neural network algorithms to estimate the
suspended sediment by using flow and sediment data. Generalized Regression Neural network
12
(GRNN) and FFNN were utilized and compared with the SRC and Multi Linear Regression
(MLR) methods. The generalized regression neural network was capable of handling the
problems of the frequently encountered local minima. Furthermore, the generalized regression
does not require an iterative training procedure which reduces the time consumption for training
the model. Based on the performance criteria used (i.e. RMSE, MAE and E%), the performance
of GRNN and FFNN was found to produce significant results compared to MLR and SRC.
prediction. Kisi (2008) designed the artificial neural network to estimate the suspended sediment
load using three different algorithms (i.e. Levenberg–Marquardt (LM), Conjugate Gradient (CG)
and Gradient Descent (GD) inside the Multi-Layer back Prorogation (MLP). The antecedent
value of water discharge and suspended sediment were made as input variables. Not only was the
normalization data applied as a preprocessing step, statistical analyses were also conducted to
identify the effective input variables. The preprocessing data step increased the performance of
the algorithm and reduced the time of computing. Comparison between the results of the three
Singh et al. (2013) simulated the suspended sediment yield by utilizing two types of
artificial neural network, i.e. standard-back propagation (SBP) and the radial basis neural
network (RBNN). Data of monthly rainfall and discharge data during the rainy season for a
watershed were used. Four different combinations of rainfall and discharge, taking into account
the antecedent value of discharge, were conducted as input parameters. By incorporating the
rainfall data to support the commonly used discharge data obviously improved the results. Their
RBNN modelling was also found to have higher accuracy than the SBP.
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Afan et al. (2014) estimated the daily sediment load by using two types of artificial neural
network algorithms of feed forward neural network (FFNN) and radial basis function (RBF). As
suggested by Singh et al. (2013), different input combinations of varying antecedent value for
both suspended sediment load and discharge were examined to get more accurate results. Eleven
years of daily suspended sediment load and discharge were employed to estimate the sediment
load whereas ten years of data was used for training and the rest was for testing. Two different
scenarios were used for prediction, where the first scenario predicted sediment load from the
antecedent value only of sediment load and the second scenario obtained the results by utilizing
the antecedent value of both sediment load and discharge. Combining flow data with the
sediment load data gave an accurate model to predict sediment load, echoing the results from
Singh et al. (2013). As for the ANN technique capability, the FFNN produced better
Based on the exhaustive study particularly on the ANN sediment prediction model, the
majority of studies applied antecedent discharge data whereas some of the studies used rainfall
data. Furthermore, the efficiency of the modelling was not only restricted to one ANN technique
only, instead the prediction capability was evaluated based on different methods of ANN. The
performance of each technique was also examined based on a different time scale of daily,
weekly, and yearly. The largest number of these studies deduced that the prediction at a daily
time scale is more precise than other time scales. Where the variation data value in a daily time
scale can give a better view of sediment transport behaviour in rivers, in addition the peak value
can also be seen in a daily scale. To give a better illustration of the variability of input variables
and time scales used, Table 1 summarizes some details of each study mentioned above. It is
noticeable that all studies (except one) have utilized a daily time scale in their work. For the
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suspended sediment modelling using ANN, the most popular performance criteria were Mean
Square Error (MSE), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), and coefficient of determination (R2).
Table 1 also shows that for the input variables, suspended sediment load (SSL) and discharge are
(Table 1 )
The architecture and the learning procedure for the fuzzy inference systems (FIS) was first
introduced by Jang (1993), where the neural network learning algorithm was applied to construct
a set of fuzzy IF-THEN rules with appropriate membership functions (MFs) from the specified
input-output pairs. The architecture of the fuzzy system consists of three main components, i.e.
Fuzzifier, Fuzzy data base and Defuzzifier. The main purpose of Fuzzifier is to transform the
data into vectors before using it inside the fuzzy data base, while the Defuzzifier converts the
vector to actual data. The fuzzy data base contains two partitions, which are the Fuzzy rule base
and the Inference system. Fuzzy rule base is simply defined by the conditional statement IF-
THEN. The fuzzy interface system is divided into three main types depending on the type of
interface operation of IF-THEN rules: Sugeno’s system, Tsukamoto’s system, and Mamdani’s
system. Mamdani’s system is more commonly used, while Sugeno’s system is more compact and
computationally efficient; the output is crisp without the time consuming setback and
inflow, and dam water level, (Chang et al., 2014b; El-Shafie et al., 2011a; El-Shafie et al., 2006;
15
Firat and Güngör, 2009; Firat et al., 2009; Hipni et al., 2013; Lohani et al., 2014; Noori et al.,
The earliest research of ANFIS in the estimation of sediment in rivers was by Kisi
(2005). He estimated the suspended sediment by using Neuro-fuzzy and artificial neural network
models. The input parameters used in this study were the antecedent values of sediment
concentrations and stream-flow. Daily suspended sediment and flow data were employed for two
stations to test the performance of neuro-fuzzy and neural network. The results were compared
not only between those two models, but the analysis was extended to the multi-linear regression
and sediment rating curve. This study established that the neuro-fuzzy model outperformed the
other approaches.
Lohani et al. (2007) investigated the potential of fuzzy modeling in predicting the
sediment concentration in rivers. A fuzzy logic algorithm was developed to estimate the
sediment concentration using sediment concentrations, water level and discharge data as the
input variables. The results were compared with the output obtained from other models of ANN
and SRC. In conclusion, the fuzzy model was able to capture the inherent non-linearity in the
river gauge, discharge and sediment relationship with remarkable accuracy. Also, the
comparative analysis of predictive ability in different ranges of flow proposed superiority of the
Kisi et al. (2008) predicted the sediment load using the ANFIS method by utilizing the
daily suspended sediment load and water discharge. Five different methods of RBNN, FFNN,
GRNN, MLR, and SRC were employed and each result was compared with findings from
ANFIS. The results indicated that the neuro-fuzzy model, in general, produced better estimates
16
than the other five techniques. Also, among the neural network techniques, the RBNN was found
to perform better than the FFNN and GRNN. Similarly, Firat and Güngör (2009) estimated the
suspended sediment by using ANFIS with the same input variables of discharge and sediment
but based on the monthly time scale data. Both studies stated the accuracy of ANFIS in
forecasting total sediment was significantly better than the result obtained from ANN and MLR.
Rajaee et al. (2009) estimated the sediment concentration by using ANFIS and compared
it with the output from MLR and SRC models. The antecedent value of daily suspended
sediment concentration (SSC) and discharge were used as input parameters. Two other studies
have also utilized ANFIS to predict the SSC but with different input combinations. Cobaner et
al. (2009) utilized rainfall data with the discharge and SSC while Demirci and Baltaci (2012)
used mean water temperature instead of rainfall to predict the SSC. Based on these three studies,
we can conclude that ANFIS has better performance compared with other methods of AI and
SRC. The comparison of input variables, time scale and performance criteria employed using the
ANFIS model is summarized in Table 2. It was noted that the daily data is the most often used
time scale, whereas the input variables consistently consist of flow discharge. RMSE is one of
the most popular performance criteria that has been used by most researchers where RMSE
(Table 2 )
ascertained that ANFIS is a better option due to its better learning ability for a similar network
complexity and a much smaller convergence error is achieved. Although ANFIS is capable of
highly nonlinear mapping, and is far superior to MPL and other common linear methods of
17
considerable instability. ANFIS still requires adjustable parameters that should be assumed and
achieved by using trial and error methods. It is very complicated to integrate ANFIS with
In this section, a review of the individual methods that have been applied in the sediment
transport prediction will be presented. There are many optimization algorithms and methods that
have been examined by researchers, where the common goal is to find the optimal solution. A
few of these algorithms were employed in the suspended sediment prediction such as linear
genetic programming (LGP), genetic programming (GP), gene expression programming (GEP),
support vector machine (SVM), least square support vector machine (LSSVM), neural different
evolution (NDE), boosted regression tree (BRT), principle component analysis (PCA), and M5
Model Tree Algorithms. Table 3 below illustrates the details of the studies that have been applied
to find computer programs that perform a user-defined task. It is a method for evolving equations
by taking various mathematical building blocks such as functions, constants and arithmetic
operations and combining them into a single expression and this method was developed by Koza
(1992). LGP and GEP are the extensions of the conventional tree-based GP. The first study using
the evolutionary method in sediment estimation was conducted by Guven and Kişi (2010). They
investigated the use of a machine-coded linear genetic programming (LGP) in the daily
suspended sediment load estimation. LGP, GP, ANN, and GEP were employed to evaluate the
18
performance of each method and a comparison between each technique was made. They
concluded that LGP showed better performance than other methods, especially in the estimation
of the output (i.e. the peak values of suspended sediment load). The GEP was also found to be
Table 3 presents many types of individual studies that have been applied in sediment
transport prediction. Due to the low number of applications using these AI techniques in
sediment modeling, they are grouped together in this section. Two types of input variables are
shown in Table 3: time scale and non-time scale. It is noticeable that a daily time scale is more
applicable while only one study (Goyal, 2014) applied a monthly time scale. The most popular
input that have been utilized are SSL, SSC and discharge which are also commonly used in most
(Table 3)
Ab. Ghani and Azamathulla (2012) adopted GEP to predict the sediment load transport in
the Kurau, Langat and Muda rivers in Malaysia with ten different input parameters of flow
velocity, flow depth, discharge, suspended load, bed load, water surface slope, width, total bed
material load, mean sediment size, and Manning value. The results obtained from the GEP model
were compared with the conventional rating curve, where it was established that the GEP has
better performance. Kisi and Shiri (2012) estimated the daily suspended sediment concentration
using hydro-metrological data (rainfall, streamflow) using GEP, ANN and ANFIS. The results
showed that the GEP method had better performance than other AI techniques. Similar results
were also found by Kisi et al. (2012), who applied the GP technique to estimate the daily
suspended sediment load based on the daily flow and sediment data from 1972 to 1989. Their
19
work also deduced that utilizing GP produced more accurate daily SSL estimation than ANFIS,
ANN and SVM models. Typical recent studies did not only evaluate the performance of one
model, but instead sought the best option by comparing it with several AI techniques.
still has some drawbacks. GAs are particularly notorious for their long training times.
Furthermore, since some of the solutions can be extremely complicated, another drawback is that
it can be too slow for real-time applications. One of the major drawbacks of utilizing GA for
function used in it. Besides, the time consumed by the optimization algorithm is also high since it
genetic algorithm is experienced. In fact, this issue could be solved by combining it with other
algorithms which perform guided search such as differential evolution. However, the efficiency
of this method is yet to be asserted with confidence in any sedimentation prediction model.
Support vector machines (SVM) is one of the AI methods that is based on the extension
of the idea of identifying a line, a plane or some surface that separates two classes in the
classification. It is based on the statistical learning theory initiated by Vapnik in the 1970s
(Vapnik and Vapnik, 1998). There are many studies employing SVM in the sediment transport
estimation, but most of these studies have shown that the performance of SVM is worse than
other AI methods such as ANN or GP (Haji et al., 2013; Kakaei Lafdani et al., 2013; Nourani
20
and Andalib, 2015a). However, the work of Kisi (2012) which estimated the suspended sediment
concentration found out LSSVM output is more accurate compared to ANN and SRC.
Tayfur et al. (2013) studied the sediment load prediction and generalization from
laboratory scale to field scale using the principle component analysis (PCA). Another two
methods (ANN and GP) were also applied for comparison purposes. Five parameters, i.e.
channel width, relative roughness, sediment size, geometric standard, and sediment concentration
were made as input variables. In their work, PCA essentially produced better performance than
ANN and GA for estimation of both total load and SSL. They deduced that ANN and GA
From this exhaustive literature review, we found that all prediction model techniques
have advantages and disadvantages, which are more or less vital according to the data under
study and analysed. Generally, SVM could be considered a useful tool for insolvency analysis
and cases with non-regularity data. The attractiveness of SVM as a prediction method is due to
its four main advantages: firstly, it has a regularisation parameter to overcome the problem of
overfitting which is common in ANN and ANSIF modelling. Secondly, SVM is defined by a
convex optimisation problem which overcomes the problem of having local minima by efficient
methods. With the selection of an appropriate kernel, such as the Gaussian kernel, SVMs provide
evaluation values, SVMs can be robust, even when in the training phase the model’s sampling
the lack of transparency of results due to an excessively high dimension. The first limitation of
21
the SVM methodology is its wide range of choice of the kernel values. An important practical
question that is not entirely solved is the selection of the kernel function parameters for Gaussian
kernels and the value of insensitive loss function. A second limitation is both training and testing
sessions are time consuming which is not convinient for real time application. Although SVMs
have good generalization, they can be abysmally slow during the test phase. In addition, from a
practical point of view perhaps the most serious problem with SVMs is the high algorithmic
complexity and extensive memory requirements of the required quadratic programming in large-
scale applications.
Recently, considerable attention has been given to the data preprocessing for the model input-
output patterns. This is due to the fact that data preprocessing might help for special feature
extraction from the data before further processing. Data preprocessing designates most of the
processing performed on raw data to reformulate and/or re-shape it in a more suitable fashion for
further processing procedures. Actually, data preprocessing transforms the data into a different
shape and style that will be more straightforwardly and successfully processed for the purpose of
the user, especially for an artificial intelligence model. There are several methods and techniques
Sampling is basically concerned with focusing on a representative subset from a large population
of data. Transformation which handles the raw data to create the input variable is based on
frequent manner. In addition, a de-noising method is used to eliminate noise to attain much
clearer data in order to achieve a higher accuracy in the model output. Normalization organizes
data for more efficient access and feature extraction, which is necessary and essential for
22
developing the prediction and forecasting models in order to detect mapping between the input-
In reality, the sediment transport time series can be viewed as a combination of two
components, one is stochastic (or random) and the other is the deterministic components. Once
the stochastic (noise) component is appropriately eliminated, the deterministic component can
then be easily modeled. For the purpose of cleaning up the sediment time series, many data
analysis (SSA) and wavelet analysis (WA) have been employed. In fact, most of the recent
studies on developing a sediment prediction model were focused on utilizing a wavelet method
transformations in recent years. Although the wavelet method was based on the Fourier
transform, it was found to do better than Fourier transform in studying the measured non-
stationary time series, transient phenomenon like hydrological processes (Polikar, 1999). The
wavelet transform method breaks up the signals into wavelets, which are the waveforms of
efficiently limited duration and zero mean. There are two types of wavelet transforming:
continuous wavelet transform (CWT) and discrete wavelet transform (DWT). In the hydrological
related phenomena, the discrete wavelet transform is most used by researchers because they need
to access a discrete time signal, rather than a continuous time signal. Wavelet transform deals
with time localization and frequency localization, which allows running different window sizes
depending on the scale of frequency. Wavelet has the ability to reduce the noise by decomposing
the time series to sub series. Many researchers who applied the DWT in the sediment transport
prediction in rivers produced improved results compared with the single AI models (Haji et al.,
23
2013; Kakaei Lafdani et al., 2013; Kişi, 2009; Liu et al., 2013; Mirbagheri et al., 2010; Nourani
and Andalib, 2015a; Nourani and Andalib, 2015b; Partal and Cigizoglu, 2008; Rajaee, 2010;
Rajaee et al., 2010a; Rajaee et al., 2010b; Ramezani et al., 2014; Sadeghpour Haji et al., 2014;
The first application of wavelet in the estimation of suspended sediment was conducted
by Partal and Cigizoglu (2008). They estimated and predicted the suspended sediment load in
rivers by a combined wavelet–ANN method. In the first part of their study, they predicted the
suspended sediment by using sediment load data and in the second part they utilized the
sediment and flow data to estimate the suspended sediment. The discrete wavelet transform was
employed to decompose the data sum up and served as an input for the ANN model. Results
showed more accurate predictions and the wavelet-ANN model performed better than the
conventional ANN model and the SRC model. The result illustrates that Wavelet-ANN could
By combining two methods of ANN and discrete wavelet transform, Kişi (2009)
estimated the daily suspended sediment load. Daily stream flow and suspended sediment data
were used in different combinations as input variables. The work concluded that not only was the
developed neuro-wavelet model capable of estimating the suspended sediment to a high degree
of accuracy, but it also has better performance than the conventional ANN.
neuro-fuzzy (WNF), multi-linear regression (MLR), and the conventional sediment rating curve
(SRC) models to predict the suspended sediment load. The actual time series of river flow
discharge and sediment load were decomposed to sub time series at different scales by discrete
24
wavelet transform. After the decomposition, the effective sub-series was summed together and
added to the input of the neuro-fuzzy method to predict the daily sediment load. The results
illustrated that the performance of the WNF model was significantly better than the results
Shiri and Kişi (2012) estimated the suspended sediment load by using two different
model techniques. They employed GEP, NF and ANN techniques as a single model and another
type by using conjunction models (WGEP, WNF, and WANN) which are a combination of
wavelet and single models. Daily river flow and sediment load data were used as input variables
to estimate the sediment load. Comparison of the predicted output show that GEP is capable of
simulating suspended sediment values reasonably well and also performed better than other
single models in estimating the sediment load. The application of DWT with single AI models
Liu et al. (2013) designed a complementary model of the wavelet artificial neural
network to predict the suspended sediment concentrations (SSC). Daily SSC and water discharge
data of Yellow River catchments of China were used from 1967 to 1972. The discrete wavelet
transform and Daubechies wavelet of order 4 (Db4) were employed to decompose the data in
seven sub-series. From these sub-series, only the effective sub-series were chosen by using
cross-correlation. The selected subseries were obtained to be input variables to the feed-forward
back-propagation artificial neural network (BP ANN) for a 1 day ahead SSC prediction. The
free discharge and SSC time series. Comparison of the results obtained from WANN, ANN and
SRC found that the WANN model could predict the highly nonlinear and non-stationary SSC
25
time series more precisely than ANN or SRC. Removal of noise from the data by WANN led to
a noticeable improvement in the fit of the predicted and measured SSC values.
Haji et al. (2013) used a Wavelet-Support Vector Machine (WSVM) and SVM to predict
the daily suspended sediment load. Input parameters of stream flow and suspended sediment load
time series were decomposed into several multi-frequency time series by the wavelet transform.
The autocorrelation and cross-correlation were used to assess the best input combinations. The
WSVM model with a combination of two antecedent values of flow and suspended sediment
showed better results than other combinations of antecedent values. The study supports the usage
of WSVM and SVM models as a more accurate alternative to the traditional SRC.
Nourani and Andalib (2015a) examined the performance of a wavelet-based model in the
suspended sediment load prediction. They used two types of wavelet complementary models, i.e.
the wavelet based Least Square Support Vector Machine (WLSSVM) and Wavelet based
Artificial Neural Network (WANN). Flow discharge and suspended sediment load were
decomposed into a sub-series by wavelet and then summed together which was used as input for
both SVM and ANN models to predict the monthly suspended sediment load. Even though the
single model of ANN performed better than SVM, the integrated model of WLSSVM provided
The major advantage of the wavelet over the traditional Fourier transform is that it allows
for representation of the signal in the base of wavelet functions. Each wavelet function is located
at a different spot along the time axis and its range depends on the range of applied scales.
However, Wavelet faces a major challenge regarding the choice of the threshold values that
should be first selected. This value is critical in identifying the level of de-noising in time series
26
data and has a strong influence on the final accuracy of the model. The hard threshold method
excludes all smaller values than the threshold, leaving other details unchanged. This point does
not receive sufficient discussion in the proposed models in the sediment model, which is
considered a vital issue in the prediction model utilizing wavelet as preprocessing method for the
time series.
The current review article presented the-state-of-the-art artificial intelligence approaches applied
in sediment transport modelling and prediction. The authors discussed the utility of the machine
learning techniques (i.e. ANN, SVM, ANFIS, EC and coupled AI models) and overviewed their
advantages and disadvantages. In addition, the simulation accuracy of the sediment predictive
model, which is based on the hydrological input variables, was investigated. We found that the
application of AI methods has increased since 2001 until recently, as shown in Figure 1. Studies
undertaken during these two decades of modelling enhancement have contributed to the
i. Theoretically, artificial neural network can be considered the top option, if not the
most popular method in comparison to other techniques. Although the ANN method
has some drawbacks and limitations (e.g. over-fitting, slow learning speed, local
minima, and difficulty capturing the high complexity, non-stationarity, dynamism and
mentioned drawbacks and limitation, the efficiency of ANN in the future is likely to
be improved.
ii. In the last five years, several studies effectively modeled the sediment transport
prediction using fuzzy logic and evolutionary computing techniques. Many authors
have studied these two approaches and remarkably established that their models
outperformed the conventional and ANN methods (Cobaner et al., 2009; El-Shafie et
al., 2011a; El-Shafie et al., 2006; Hipni et al., 2013; Kisi et al., 2012; Kisi and Shiri,
2012). In fact, fuzzy set is characterized by its capability to capture the non-linearity
ANFIS has been found to sufficiently handle the uncertainties and vagueness of the
sediment transport in rivers. Whereas, the evolutionary computing methods have the
advantages of their skill to evolve solutions for the problem instead of giving a direct
fixed solution.
iii. Of all the time scales used in the reviewed papers, daily sediment transport in river
was the most commonly used parameter. Indeed, this time horizon is more applicable
than weekly or monthly time horizons due to the fact that daily sediment pattern
iv. Generally, suspended sediment prediction studies could be categorized into two major
groups, namely, time based (time domain) and case base studies. Actually, the
be generalized and successfully applied in other case river case study, on the other
28
hand, the potential for generalization is higher for those models under case base
category. Indeed, this review research focused on the models under the category
of time domain studies where these studies are purposely developed for certain river
only utilizing its particular sediment time series data, such category of models could
be successful for similar rivers. While, the models under the case base category, the
of physical data from several rivers that has not time series data (e.g. Pektas, 2015;
Petals et al., 2015; Tayfur et al., 2013). Therefore, suspended sediment load (SSL)
and suspended sediment concentration (SSC) have been modelled and predicted
variables are categorized into two types: time domain data, e.g. SSL, SSC, discharge,
rainfall, water level and water temperature; and non-time domain data which is used
in case base studies, e.g. flow velocity, flow depth, water surface slope, river width,
flow area, hydraulic radius and others. The majority of the studies utilized the time
series data of discharge and SSL in their modeling. This is expected, as discussed in
the hydrological concept, since streamflow is the most associated variable which
effects the amount and concentration of sediment in rivers. Even so, relying solely on
behaviour.
v. Most recently, there is an effective method that impressively deals with the multi-
scale and non-stationarity pattern of the time series, which is the wavelet transform
transformation in the river. It has the ability to de-noise the time series data in order
to improve the results of estimation. Throughout the review of the current research,
outstanding results compared with the individual data-driven models (Kişi, 2009;
Nourani and Andalib, 2015a; Rajaee et al., 2010b; Shiri and Kişi, 2012). In addition,
the revision of wavelet transform application in sediment transport reveals that all
wavelet transform (CWT) has not yet been applied and needs to be investigated.
vi. Among the surveyed articles, it was found that models were evaluated based on
several evaluation indicators (i.e., R, RMSE, MSE, MAE, RE, NS and E). Between
all the mentioned indicators, R and RMSE were used as fundamental performance
criteria to assess the models. The researchers highlighted that “goodness-of-fit” and
one absolute error measures are recommended to be carried out for the hydrological
From a thorough review of the literature, it can be seen that an enhancement for sediment
1- After collecting the time series data for sediment or discharge, it is necessary to
preprocess the data before creating any estimation model. The purpose of preprocessing
is to remove unwanted variation. There are many common preprocessing methods, but
most of them involve the possibility of losing important data when deleting some of the
30
variation and this makes the problem more complicated. The two most recommended
methods in preprocessing data are the Orthogonal partial least squares (OPLS) and the
O2PLS (bidirectional OPLS). These two methods are novel extensions of the PLS
method (Trygg and Wold, 2002). The structure of O2PLS is a bidirectional model, and
this type of structure improves understanding of the studied data sets (Gabrielsson et al.,
2006). Other common alternative methods that can be used for preprocessing are
principal component regression (PCR), partial least squares (PLS), multiple linear
standard normal variation (SNV), and orthogonal signal correction (OSC), to name a few.
2- Discharge is one of the most important parameters which has a direct effect on the
behaviour of transported sediment in the river. Due to the dynamism of the sediment
recommended to create two sub models based on the discharge values. Classifying the
data into two groups will keep the data value close enough and improve the accuracy of
prediction.
3- Denoising data is an important issue. Wavelet transform is one of the most popular
processing data tools, and many studies have utilized this tool to enhance the
stationary and complexity in the time series is considered as the major obstacles that face
the modelling utilizing soft computing methods for suspended sediment prediction. A
hybrid ANN-wavelet model has been proven that the decomposition of time series could
be consider as one the optimal way to deal with the non-stationary and complex time
series data and then enhance the performance of model in terms of the prediction
31
accuracy. One of the best alternatives and recommended methods for de-noising is fast
orthogonal search (FOS). FOS is a signal processing tool developed to provide a high-
functions. The proposed method has two significant advantages: firstly, FOS yields a
sinusoidal components, and secondly, the frequencies of the sinusoids selected need not
4- ANN is one of the best techniques that has been used widely in the sediment transport
estimation and accomplished good results compared with other classical methods such as
SRC. Employing the ANN method in the suggested complementary AI sediment model
will increase the performance of the model. Indeed, an improvement of back propagation
in ANN is needed. The issue with the gradient decent in ANN is that it sticks with local
minima or maxima due to the difficulty of searching for the optimal solution. This issue
can be solved by utilizing new evolutionary algorithms (EAs) that have the ability to
search for global minima or maxima. Numerous high potential algorithms such as
Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), Artificial Bee
Colony algorithm (ABC), Ant Lion Optimizer (ALO), Bacterial Colony Optimization
(BCO) and Gravitational Search Algorithm (GSA) are available, although their efficiency
(Figure 3)
32
8 Conclusions
In this paper, a thorough review of all the AI approaches, specifically applied in the estimation of
recent years, the Artificial Intelligence and computation methods have shown the ability to tackle
the complexity of estimating suspended sediment. The artificial neural network, neuro-fuzzy,
Wavelet based model, and some evolutionary algorithms (EAs) are the most efficient methods
that have been applied in the sediment field. The uninterrupted development in AI, soft
computing and its application has increased competition between researchers to develop an
accurate model to overcome the complexity, non-stationarity and dynamism of the sediment
complementary model consisting of the most advanced and recent AI methods as recommended
in this paper.
Acknowledgement
This research was partially supported by Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, under the research
grant for the second author DIP-2015-012 and for the third author DIP-2015-006.
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12
10
Number of papers
0
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
year of publication
Figure 1: Number of AI publication in sediment estimation since 2001 until 2014 (indexed in
Scopus)
Figure 2: Types of input and output variables for ANN sediment transport model
40
Figure 3: The stages of complementary suggested model with some recommended AI methods
41
Table 1 Details of the ANN reviewed papers, including authors, type of ANN, input variables,
Mean Absolute Relative Error (MARE), Efficiency (E), Mean Absolute Percent Error
(MAPE)).
Table 3 The application of SVM and evolutionary methods in sediment transport estimation
scale
Highlights
An assessment and evaluation have been carried out for the AI sediment models.
Several recommended advanced techniques have been proposed for future research.