Development of Flood Forecasting System Using Statistical and ANN Techniques in the Downstream Catchment of Mahanadi Basin, India

The floods in river Mahanadi delta are due to either dam release of Hirakud or due to contribution of intercepted catchment between Hirakud dam and delta. It is seen from post-Hirakud periods (1958) that out of 19 floods 14 are due to intercepted catchment contribution. The existing flood forecasting systems are mostly for upstream catchment, forecasting the inflow to reservoir, whereas the downstream catchment is devoid of a sound flood forecasting system. Therefore, in this study an attempt has been made to develop a workable forecasting system for downstream catchment. Instead of taking the flow time series concurrent flood peaks of 12 years of base and forecasting stations with its corresponding travel time are considered for analysis. Both statistical method and ANN based approach are considered for finding the peak to reach at delta head with its corresponding travel time. The travel time has been finalized adopting clustering techniques, there by differentiating high, medium and low peaks. The method is simple and it does not take into consideration the rainfall and other factors in the intercepted catchment. A comparison between both methods are tested and it is found that the ANN methods are better beyond the calibration range over statistical method and the efficiency of either methods reduces as the prediction reach is extended. However, it is able to give the peak discharge at delta head before 24 hour to 37 hour for high to low peaks.