Modelling of dissolved oxygen in the Danube River using artificial neural networks and Monte Carlo Simulation uncertainty analysis

•An ANN model for water quality was developed for the Danube River in Serbia.•The model was trained, validated and tested for the forecasting of DO content.•The optimum data normalization and input selection techniques were determined.•The uncertainty of inputs and model results was estimated using MCS technique.•Temperature variability has the highest impact on the variability of modeled DO.

SummaryThis paper describes the training, validation, testing and uncertainty analysis of general regression neural network (GRNN) models for the forecasting of dissolved oxygen (DO) in the Danube River. The main objectives of this work were to determine the optimum data normalization and input selection techniques, the determination of the relative importance of uncertainty in different input variables, as well as the uncertainty analysis of model results using the Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) technique. Min-max, median, z-score, sigmoid and tanh were validated as normalization techniques, whilst the variance inflation factor, correlation analysis and genetic algorithm were tested as input selection techniques. As inputs, the GRNN models used 19 water quality variables, measured in the river water each month at 17 different sites over a period of 9 years. The best results were obtained using min-max normalized data and the input selection based on the correlation between DO and dependent variables, which provided the most accurate GRNN model, and in combination the smallest number of inputs: Temperature, pH, HCO3−, SO42−, NO3-N, Hardness, Na, Cl−, Conductivity and Alkalinity. The results show that the correlation coefficient between measured and predicted DO values is 0.85. The inputs with the greatest effect on the GRNN model (arranged in descending order) were T, pH, HCO3−, SO42− and NO3-N. Of all inputs, variability of temperature had the greatest influence on the variability of DO content in river body, with the DO decreasing at a rate similar to the theoretical DO decreasing rate relating to temperature. The uncertainty analysis of the model results demonstrate that the GRNN can effectively forecast the DO content, since the distribution of model results are very similar to the corresponding distribution of real data.

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