A hybrid model for modelling the salinity of the Tafna River in Algeria

Abstract

In this paper, the capacity of an Adaptive-Network-Based Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) for predicting salinity of the Tafna River is investigated. Time series data of daily liquid flow and saline concentrations from the gauging station of Pierre du Chat (160801) were used for training, validation and testing the hybrid model. Different methods were used to test the accuracy of our results, i.e. coefficient of determination (R 2 ), Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient (E), root of the mean squared error (RSR) and graphic techniques. The model produced satisfactory results and showed a very good agreement between the predicted and observed data, with R 2 equal (88% for training, 78.01% validation and 80.00% for testing), E equal (85.84% for training, 82.51% validation and 78.17% for testing), and RSR equal (2% for training, 10% validation and 49% for testing).