River Water Level Prediction Based on Deep Learning: Case Study on the Geum River, South Korea

At present, deep learning models have been widely applied in many studies related to the field of water resource management. In this study, several deep learning neural network models based on the Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) architectures have been applied to the river water level prediction for a short-time period, from one hour to nine hours ahead. The input data of these models are hourly water levels which are observed at four hydrological stations on the Geum River, South Korea. Though the model does not require data such as topography, land cover, or precipitation data, the forecasted results indicate significant stability and performance. Compared to the observed water level data, the correlation coefficient NSE (Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency) is up to more than 99% in the case of a 1-hour forecast. The results of this study prove the potential of deep learning models in predicting water level and applicable to other river basins.