Local vs. cross station simulation of suspended sediment load in successive hydrometric stations: heuristic modeling approach

Abstract The present paper aims at modeling suspended sediment load (SSL) using heuristic data driven methodologies, e.g. Gene Expression Programming (GEP) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) in three successive hydrometric stations of Housatonic River in U.S. The simulations were carried out through local and cross-station data management scenarios to investigate the interrelations between the SSL values of upstream/downstream stations. The available scenarios were applied to predict SSL values using GEP to obtain the best models. Then, the best models were predicted by SVM approach and the obtained results were compared with those of GEP. The comparison of the results revealed that the SVM technique is more capable than the GEP for modeling the SSL through the both local and cross-station data management strategies. Besides, local application seems to be better than cross-station application for modeling SSL. Nevertheless, the cross-station application demonstrated to be a valid methodology for simulating SSL, which would be of interest for the stations with lack of observational data. Also, the prediction capability of conventional Sediment Rating Curve (SRC) method was compared with those of GEP and SVM techniques. The obtained results revealed the superiority of GEP and SVM-based models over the traditional SRC technique in the studied stations.

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