Appraisal of soft computing techniques in prediction of total bed material load in tropical rivers

This paper evaluates the performance of three soft computing techniques, namely Gene-Expression Programming (GEP) (Zakaria et al 2010), Feed Forward Neural Networks (FFNN) (Ab Ghani et al 2011), and Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) in the prediction of total bed material load for three Malaysian rivers namely Kurau, Langat and Muda. The results of present study are very promising: FFNN (R-2 = 0.958, RMSE = 0.0698), ANFIS (R-2 = 0.648, RMSE = 6.654), and GEP (R-2 = 0.97, RMSE = 0.057), which support the use of these intelligent techniques in the prediction of sediment loads in tropical rivers.