SVM-Based Model for Short-Term Rainfall Forecasts at a Local Scale in the Mumbai Urban Area, India
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 19, Issue 5
Abstract
In high-density urban areas, flooding affects a large number of people. A rapidly implementable nonstructural measure is the development of an early flood warning mechanism based on observations from ground-based rainfall stations, especially where radars are not yet installed. To increase the lead time for issuing warnings, a reliable short-term rainfall forecasting model is required, specifically for fast-responding urban catchments where the time of concentration is less than 45 min. With this objective, a rainfall forecasting methodology has been developed using the least-squares support vector machine (LS-SVM) and the probabilistic global search–Lausanne (PGSL) technique. The study’s focus was Mumbai, which receives all of its annual rainfall of 2,430 mm during June to September. The Mumbai storm drainage system had been designed to drain rainfall and is being upgraded for . Storms less than do not cause flooding; hence, the proposed methodology was developed using rainfall events greater than . The model developed in this study has been evaluated using statistical performance criteria for four observed high-intensity rainfall events () during 2011. The results indicate that the proposed methodology using LS-SVM and PGSL can effectively forecast high-intensity rainfall with lead time from 5 to 20 min. This study improves upon the 1-h forecast limitation of earlier studies and has the potential to forecast rainfall in real time, especially where radar data are not available.
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Acknowledgments
The authors are thankful to the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) for making the data for carrying out this study available.
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Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 19 • Issue 5 • May 2014
Pages: 1048 - 1052
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 28, 2012
Accepted: Jul 2, 2013
Published online: Jul 4, 2013
Discussion open until: Dec 4, 2013
Published in print: May 1, 2014
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