Application of the Triple Diagram Method in Medium-Term Water Consumption Forecasting

Abstract

The paper discusses medium-term water consumption forecasting based on popular methods of time series analysis, indicating their limitation and strict requirements for the statistical properties of the time series, such as being stationary or linear. Therefore, a new approach in this area is proposed, based on the kriging method. This method is a geostatistical estimation method that provides unbiased linear estimates for the analyzed value. The study used the ordinary kriging method to provide input data for the preparation of a contour map. Coordinates have been replaced by water consumption values from earlier periods. The received “model” was tested against 24 months of historical data. For the triple diagram built using water consumption values from the two preceding months, the value of the assessment criterion for MAPE forecasting models was satisfactory (less than 13%).