Development of rainfall–runoff models using Takagi–Sugeno fuzzy inference systems

SummaryThis study explores the application of Takagi–Sugeno fuzzy inference systems to rainfall–runoff modelling. The models developed intend to describe the non-linear relationship between rainfall as input and runoff as output to the real system using a system based approach. Two types of fuzzy models are proposed, where the first type is intended to account for the effect of changes in catchment wetness in the rainfall–runoff transformation and the second type incorporates seasonality as a source of non-linearity in this relationship. The models developed are applied to data from six catchments of diverse climatic characteristics. The results of the fuzzy models are compared with those of the Simple Linear Model, the Linear Perturbation Model and the Nearest Neighbour Linear Perturbation Model, which use similar input information. The results of this study indicate that fuzzy inference systems are a suitable alternative to the traditional methods for modelling the non-linear relationship between rainfall and runoff.