Invasive-Weed-Optimization-Based Extreme Learning Machine for Prediction of Lake Water Level Using Major Atmospheric–Oceanic Climate Scenarios

Fresh water lakes are vulnerable assets that need to be protected against manmade/natural challenges like climate change and anthropogenesis activities. This study addresses the predictability of the lake water level changes based on the knowledge acquired directly from the climate data. Two fresh water lakes named Lake Iznik and Uluabat, located in Turkey, are addressed. Time series of the lake water levels during October 1990–September 2019 at a monthly scale, along with the corresponding anomalies of 24 Large-Scale Atmospheric–Oceanic Oscillations (LSAOOs) from around the globe, are used in the analysis. The relationship between variables and the structure of the models are initially acquired based on the significance of the dependence between climate indices and lake water levels with consideration of the significance of the Spearman rank-order coefficient. Then, the time series are divided into training (80%) and testing (20%) sets. The Extreme Learning Method (ELM), enhanced with the genetic algorithm (ELM-GA) and Invasive Weed Optimization (ELM-IWO), is then used in the predictive models. Based on the results, Lake Uluabat showed a stronger teleconnection with LSAOOs, while the ELM-GA for Lake Iznik and ELM-IWA for Lake Uluabat depicted the best performance in the prediction of lake water levels. Comparison of the enhanced ELM-IWO to the corresponding ELM-GA illustrates that the ELM-IWO reveals more acceptable results owing to its flexible nature.