Event-based decision support algorithm for real-time flood forecasting in urban drainage systems using machine learning modelling

Journal Article (2023)
Research Group
Sanitary Engineering
Copyright
© 2023 Farzad Piadeh, Kourosh Behzadian, Albert S. Chen, Luiza C. Campos, Joseph P. Rizzuto, Z. Kapelan
DOI related publication
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2023.105772
More Info
expand_more
Publication Year
2023
Language
English
Copyright
© 2023 Farzad Piadeh, Kourosh Behzadian, Albert S. Chen, Luiza C. Campos, Joseph P. Rizzuto, Z. Kapelan
Research Group
Sanitary Engineering
Volume number
167
Reuse Rights

Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.

Abstract

Urban flooding is a major problem for cities around the world, with significant socio-economic consequences. Conventional real-time flood forecasting models rely on continuous time-series data and often have limited accuracy, especially for longer lead times than 2 hrs. This study proposes a novel event-based decision support algorithm for real-time flood forecasting using event-based data identification, event-based dataset generation, and a real-time decision tree flowchart using machine learning models. The results of applying the framework to a real-world case study demonstrate higher accuracy in forecasting water level rise, especially for longer lead times (e.g., 2–3 hrs), compared to traditional models. The proposed framework reduces root mean square error by 50%, increases accuracy of flood forecasting by 50%, and improves normalised Nash–Sutcliffe error by 20%. The proposed event-based dataset framework can significantly enhance the accuracy of flood forecasting, reducing the occurrences of both false alarms and flood missing and improving emergency response systems.