Development of integrated sediment rating curves using ANNs

Correct estimation of sediment volume beings carried by a river is very important for many water resources projects. Conventional sediment rating curves, however, are not able to provide sufficiently accurate results. Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are a simplied mathematical representation of the functioning of the human brain. Three-layer feed-forward ANNs have been shown to be a powerful tool for input-output mapping and have been widely used in water resources problems. The ANN approach is used to establish an integrated stage-discharge-sediment concentration relation for two sites on the Mississippi River. Based on the comparison of the results for two gauging sites, it is shown that the ANN results are much closer to the observed values than the conventional technique.