Groundwater spring potential prediction using a deep-learning algorithm

Abstract Information about water resources is crucial for sustainable development, and this issue is considered to be one of the most important concerns worldwide due to rapid industrialization and population growth. Countries in the semiarid region of the western Asia, like Iran, are dependent on groundwater resources so access to these resources is vital. This study maps surface spring potential on the Nourabad–Koohdasht Plain of Iran using a deep-learning algorithm called convolutional neural network (CNN), and the result was compared to predictions made with five advanced data-mining models: logistic model tree (LMT), LMT hybridized with bagging (BA-LMT), LMT hybridized with dagging (DA-LMT), LMT hybridized with random subspace (RS-LMT), and LMT hybridized with AdaBoost (AB-LMT). Frequency ratio was used to assess the strengths of relationships of each subclass layer to groundwater presence and evidential belief function revealed their effects on model uncertainty. The locations of 2463 springs were determined and showed that the northern part of the plain has the highest groundwater potential based on the density of springs. The data representing each of the spring locations were used for prediction modeling. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) and area under the ROC curve (AUC) were used to evaluate the strengths of the predictions produced by the models. The results show that CNN (AUC = 0.885) provided the best prediction of spring locations. AB-LMT (AUC = 0.877) was second best, and BA-LMT (AUC = 0.876), DA-LMT (AUC = 0.856), RS-LMT (AUC = 0.846), and the standalone LMT model (AUC = 0.827) followed in rank. It can be concluded that the hybrid LMT models increased the predictive strength of the standalone LMT model when used to predict spring locations. These hybrid modeling methods may be used to improve sustainable groundwater management in the study region and in other regions as well.