System identification of the upper part of Murray River

•The upper part of the Murray River in Australia was modelled for control purposes.•Different identification methods were used and their performances were compared.•Both multi-input single-output and multi-input multi-output models were considered.

Data based modelling is an important tool for obtaining models of rivers. In this paper we consider several identification methods, namely Prediction Error Method, Maximum Likelihood, continuous time system identification, Refined Instrumental Variable method (used within the context of Data-Based Mechanistic modelling) and Subspace Identification Method, and apply them to real data from the Murray River in Australia. Both Multiple-Input Single-Output models where the output is the water level in a lake and Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output models where in addition a flow is also modelled, are considered. The models are compared in terms of their accuracy on validation data and on how easily the methods can incorporate prior knowledge.