Using machine learning to predict processes and morphometric features of watershed

Marzieh Mokarram; Hamid Reza Pourghasemi; John P Tiefenbacher

doi:10.1038/s41598-023-35634-2

Using machine learning to predict processes and morphometric features of watershed

Sci Rep. 2023 May 25;13(1):8498. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-35634-2.

Authors

Marzieh Mokarram¹, Hamid Reza Pourghasemi², John P Tiefenbacher³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Geography, Faculty of Economics, Management and Social Sciences, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran. m.mokarram@shirazu.ac.ir.
² Department of Soil Science, College of Agriculture, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran.
³ Department of Geography, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX, USA.

Abstract

The research aims to classify alluvial fans' morphometric properties using the SOM algorithm. It also determines the relationship between morphometric characteristics and erosion rate and lithology using the GMDH algorithm. For this purpose, alluvial fans of 4 watersheds in Iran are extracted semi-automatically using GIS and digital elevation model (DEM) analysis. The relationships between 25 morphometric features of these watersheds, the amount of erosion, and formation material are investigated using the self-organizing map (SOM) method. Principal component analysis (PCA), Greedy, Best first, Genetic search, Random search as feature selection algorithms are used to select the most important parameters affecting erosion and formation material. The group method of data handling (GMDH) algorithm is employed to predict erosion and formation material based on morphometries. The results indicated that the semi-automatic method in GIS could detect alluvial fans. The SOM algorithm determined that the morphometric factors affecting the formation material were fan length, minimum height of fan, and minimum fan slope. The main factors affecting erosion were fan area (A_f) and minimum fan height (H_min-f). The feature selection algorithm identified (H_min-f), maximum fan height (H_max-f), minimum fan slope, and fan length (L_f) to be the morphometries most important for determining formation material, and basin area, fan area, (H_max-f) and compactness coefficient (C_irb) were the most important characteristics for determining erosion rates. The GMDH algorithm predicted the fan formation materials and rates of erosion with high accuracy (R² = 0.94, R² = 0.87).