CHAPTER 1

THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

1.1.1 The Tullahan River in Valenzuela City

Tullahan River is one of the three major rivers interconnecting in the boundaries
of Valenzuela City. It starts from La Mesa reservoir flow through Malabon and
Valenzuela to Manila Bay and is one of the major contributors of flood in the low-lying
areas of the city.

Valenzuela City is located in the northern part of the region of Metro Manila. It is
part of a sub-region called CAMANAVA (composed of the cities of Caloocan, Malabon,
Navotas and Valenzuela) situated in the estuary of several river deltas. Valenzuela City is
one of the most densely populated cities in the country and its low-lying, flat terrain
makes it prone to frequent flooding, especially during high tides, heavy rains and when
river and dams overflow. The four cities in CAMANAVA are commonly affected by
interconnected rivers, one of which is the river of Tullahan. In recent years, floods have
worsened, occurring more frequently and reaching levels of several feet deep. Most
affected are families in the communities that are along or near the riverbanks. The river
has become narrower and shallower over the years, and its capacity to hold water has
decreased. With more frequent intense rains, the riverbanks flood regularly and flooding
reaches farther into low-lying and densely populated areas of the city.

1
1.1.2 Artificial Neural Network

Artificial Neural Network (ANN) are computer programs that simulate the human
brain process information to gather the knowledge by detecting the patterns and
relationship in data and learn from experience not in programming. ANN can combine
and incorporate both literature based and experimental data to solve problems. There is
various application of ANN it can summarize into classification or pattern recognition,
prediction and modeling.

A neural network is a system of hardware and/or software patterned after the

operation of neurons in the human brain. Neural networks -- also called artificial neural
networks -- are a variety of deep learning technologies. Commercial applications of these
technologies generally focus on solving complex signal processing or pattern recognition
problems. Examples of significant commercial applications since 2000 include
handwriting recognition for check processing, speech-to-text transcription, oil-
exploration data analysis, weather prediction and facial recognition.

Use of ANN:

 Classification

-Pattern Recognition, image matching

 Noise Production

-To produce noiseless output and for the input to recognize patterns.

 Prediction

-To predict by projecting past data

Benefits of using ANN:

 ANN is a powerful modeling technique capable of solving nonlinear and complex

process of rice production using parallel processing approach

2
  ANN learns itself from the structure of training dataset and predicts the future
data.
 ANN uses dimensionless numbers in its input and output variables.
 User feed input and get output without thinking about the dimensionality in
computation inside the hidden layer.

ANN versus Linear Regression

 The linear regression has a tendency to smooth its predictions with a higher
tendency to either over predict or under predict water level as compared to ANN.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Flood is one of the major water hazards in the Philippines and Tullahan River is
one of the most contributors of floods in Valenzuela City. This study seeks to analyze the
water level of Tullahan by the process can be accomplished via ANN using MATLAB.

1.3 OBJECTIVE:

The objective of this study is to experimentally measure the effectiveness of

neural network in predicting the water level of the river using different parameters.

3
1.4 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

This study seeks to analyze a water level by using an Artificial Neural Network.
To conduct this research, the researchers need a five sets of parameter obtained from
Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration
(PAGASA). Applications, whose goal is to generate a system that simplifies well to
unseen examples, face the risk of over-training. This arises in complicated or over-
specified systems when the capacity of the network knowingly it exceeds the needed free
parameters. Two approaches address over-training. The first is to use cross-validation and
analogous techniques to check for the occurrence of over-training and optimally select
hyper parameters to reduce the generalization error. The second is to use some form
of regularization. This concept begins in a probabilistic (Bayesian) framework, where
regularization can be performed by choosing a larger prior probability over simpler
models; but also in statistical learning theory, where the goal is to reduce over two
quantities: the 'empirical risk' and the 'structural risk', which unevenly matches to the
error over the training set and the predicted error in hidden data due to overfitting.

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 1.5 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

OUTPUT
 Predicted
PROCESS values for
INPUT
 Data water level
 Selection Gathering of Tullahan
of River
 Data
Variables Extraction  Correlation
 Scope and  Data
values
Limitation. Simulation  Comparative
using analysis of
MATLAB the predicted
and actual
water level
values.

FEEDBACK
FEEDBACK

5
1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The researchers believe that this study is important for giving the local residents
an idea to know when they are prone to the flood. Thus, triggering their minds to find an
idea or solution on how to deal with this issue and to prepare for the risk it may take.

By using this research, it may use by different society:

Researchers. This study seeks to correlate the importance to another study about this
matter aside from the study about the flood forecasting. This could help the next
researchers if they would like to make further studies about the water level forecasting
in Valenzuela City.

Hydrologist. This study will be used as additional information about the usage of ANN
in forecasting the water level of the river.

Flood-prone areas. Areas that is usually damaged by flood to develop their awareness
particularly if they already need to evacuate and secure their protection.

1.7 SCOPE AND LIMITATION

This study is focusing on the forecasting of water level in Tullahan River

at Marulas using ANN. This model will be the tool of the researchers to come up to the
desired result. This research aims to give daily forecasting of water level
on Tullahan River in BBB, Marulas using artificial network.

The researchers are analyzing the data that can affect Tullahan River limited
along the river flow and at Marulas, Valenzuela City.

6
1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS

 Algorithm – a set of steps that are followed in order to solve a mathematical

problem or to complete a computer process
 ANN (ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORK) – is a computational model based
on structure and functions of biological neural networks.
 Hydrologic Hazard – water event of disaster
 MATLAB - is a software that optimized for solving engineering and scientific
problems
 Nodes – a place where lines in a network cross or meet

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 CHAPTER 2

Review of Related Literatures

All related studies and literatures are presented in this chapter.

A lot of research about Artificial Neural Network (ANN) was already conducted
in the past years. Based on “Research Paper on Basic Artificial Neural Network”
(Maind S. and Wankar P., 2014), ANN is computers whose architecture is modeled after
the brain. They typically consist of hundreds of simple processing units together in a
complex communication network. MATLAB has a neural network tool to make
forecasting with the given hydrologic data.

Cigizoglu (2008) said forecasts of future events are required in many of the
activities associated with the planning and operation of the components of a water
resource system. For the hydrologic part, for both short and long-term forecasts of
hydrologic time series to optimize the system or to plan for future expansion or reduction.
River water level is a main controlling factor on the inundated extent and water level in
floodplains, while the infilling and draining of floodplains inversely affect the discharge
in river channels by attenuating water level variations by flood waves (Yamazaki et al.,
2011). According to them, there are some basins such as the Amazon where river gauge
network has been installed recently, but generally, they do not expect to have access to
densely network in its original place measurements of river water level in a near future. A
lot of researchers contributed to the traditional method of water level prediction which
uses tidal harmonic analysis of tidal data covering a period of time ranging from 29 days
to 18.6 years (Badejo et al., 2014).

The traditional method is correct but has the following disadvantages:

i. More than 18.6 years of results to resolve the lunar tides in the modulation.

8
 ii. Amplitude accuracy of 10-3 of the largest term requires that at least 39
frequencies be determined. Several types of research that not less than 400 frequencies
need for an amplitude accuracy of 10-4 of the largest term.

iii. Non-tidal variability introduces large errors into the calculated amplitudes and
phases of the weaker tidal constituents. The weaker tides have amplitudes smaller than
variability at the same frequency due to other processes such as wind set up and currents
near the tide gauge.

iv. At many ports, the tide is non-linear, and many more tidal constituents. For
some ports, the number of frequencies is unmanageable. When tides propagate into very
shallow water, especially river estuaries, they steepened and become non-linear. This
generates harmonics of the original frequencies.

Due to advanced technology today, Ruslan F.A, et al. (2016) claimed that 3-hour
flood water level prediction has been successfully developed, analyzed and tested
using MATLAB Neural Network Tool. ANN using Feed Forward Backpropagation is an
appropriate predictor for real-time Water Level forecasting (Rani and Parekh, 2014).

An ANN is a massively parallel distributed information processing system that

has certain performance characteristics resembling biological neural networks of the
human brain (Haykin, 1994). ANNs has into three basic layers—input, hidden and
output. The input nodes in this representation perform no computation but are used to
distribute inputs into the network. This kind of network is called a feedforward network
as information passes one way through the network from the input layer, through the
hidden layer and finally to the output layer. Recurrent networks, such as Hopfield nets
allow feedback between layers.

Error-Correction Learning used with supervised learning. It is the technique of

comparing the system’s ANN output to the desired output value. The error is used to train
the system for better performance. The error values can be used to directly adjust the
weights, using an algorithm such as the backpropagation algorithm. If the system output

9
is ANN output and the desired system output is known as actual data
supplied. (Shivakumar. J. Nyamathi, Bharath. R. and A. V. Hegde, 2013)

Predicting the water level is like forecasting the weather: the earlier the
information is available, the better. Water level predictions are critical for building
resiliency to flooding both in terms of short-term storm-induced flooding and longer-term
sea level rise (Commonwealth Center for Recurrent Flooding Resiliency, 2017).

The researchers used Python to automate the reprocessing. In order for the results
became suitable for the Neural Network, it involves the following steps: (1) Scaling the
data; (2) Retrieving the relevant weather data, (3) Averaging the weather data retained;
and (4) Splitting the data (testing and training). 1) Scaling the data 2) The weather data
(i.e. temperature, dew point, relative humidity, sea level pressure, wind, direction, air
temperature, gusts, precipitation, and water temperature) scaled into smaller values. Some
typhoon data (i.e. pressure, rainfall, mean sea level International Journal of Modeling and
Optimization, Vol. 7, No. 6, December 2017 353 pressure) was reprocessed as well. 3)
Retrieve relevant weather data 4) Retrieved weather data from Guam encompasses 5 days
before the start of the actual typhoon in the Philippines. 5) Averaging the data 6) a five-
day weather data, corresponding to a typhoon, averaged to avoid too many variables
during the training and testing of the neural network. 7) Splitting data (training and
testing) 8) the weather and typhoon data were split into the training set and testing set.
The first 13 years was the training set and the remaining 2 years was the testing set. This
training set was then fed to the radial basis function neural network.

10
 CHAPTER 3

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter will elaborate on the plan of the researchers in achieving the goal of
the study, especially the research design formulation and the acquired method. After
giving a careful deliberation to the goals of the study, use of information, and the scope
and limitations, the researchers decided to use the water level, temperature, and rainfall
datum of the Tullahan River from June 2018 to September of 2019.

3.2 AREA OF THE STUDY

Figure 3.2.1 Map of the Tullahan River

11
3.3 SELECTION OF INPUT VARIABLES

Any dependent variables (output parameters) may be a function one or more

independent variables (input parameters). The water level in Ugong and Quirino Bridge
where the river flows and different rain station within Marulas, Valenzuela City along
with their antecedent values of four months have been taken as input to determine the
best number of input parameters.

3.4 DATA GATHERING

The primary information to complete this research paper will be the gathering of
data. In PAGASA (Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services
Administration), the researchers gathered the data of rainfall intensity and past water
level.

3.5 DATA EXTRACTION

The past water level data of Tullahan River along Ugong and Quirino Bridge
were listed according to 10-minute data which is from 7 am to 7 am in the next day. The
goal of this research is to predict the water level in a daily basis thus, the data of water
levels were averaged to get the past daily water level. The precipitations were also a 10-
minute basis so the researchers summed the precipitations in a 24-hour basis.

12
3.6 RESEARCH DESIGN

Figure 3.6.1 Network Diagram

Neural Networks are data processing system that uses a multilayered technique to
estimated compound mathematical function of data. In this study, the researchers used the
Feed Forward Back Propagation Neural Network (FFBPNN). In this network, the data
that were input will undertake to the input nodes and multiply by its weight and it will
pass to the hidden nodes. The hidden layer is the same process as output nodes.

The researchers used a software application called MATLAB to simulate the

ANN.

ANN established to predict the water level in different algorithms, learning rates,
and the number of hidden neurons. ANN aims to generate or give the best result.
Backpropagation used by the network to simulate the learning algorithm is called Scale
Conjugate Gradient.

This algorithm aimed to avoid the time-consuming line research. This requires
more repetition to congregate, but the number of computations in each repetition must be
reduced because no line search is achieved.

13
 The input node has a past water level in Ugong and Quirino Bridge where the
river flows and different rain station within Marulas, Valenzuela City. As the researchers
expected the output that they get from the network is the water level on the current day.

3.7 GENERAL PROCEDURES FOR NEURAL NETWORK SIMULATION

USING MATLAB

1. Open Matlab software then create new variables for the inputs and outputs.

2. These tables must appear upon creating.

14
3. After the input of variables, type “nntool” in the command window and a neural
network toolbox will appear.

4. When the neural network toolbox or Data Manager appears, import data to the network
as shown.

15
5. Next click “New” to create a network and by using feed forward propagation with (3)
neurons or choose the better neurons for simulation of your parameters and use 2 number
of layers.

16
6. The following data appear in the neural network toolbox or Data Manager upon
creating.

17
7. Double click the created network to view the tab shown.

8. Go to the “Train” and input data’s as shown, then train the network.

18
9. Next this tab will appear after clicking Train Network, click regression.

10. Next this tab will appear after clicking the button of regression.

19
11. By noticing the R values above it can be seen that the training of network produces
bad result, thus repeat steps 8 and 9 until getting result as good as produce like R value of
0.90 and above and Fit line and data particles nearly fit in the 45-degree dotted line Y or
T.

20
12. Next after getting good result, proceed to the “Simulation” tab and choose input value
as shown, then click “Simulate Network” button.

13. Next the output will appear in the neural network toolbox or Data Manager after the
simulation of network, it must contain good predicted values since the training of
network produce good it values.

14. Next to copy the predicted values, if must be exported in the Matlab workspace as
shown.

21
15. Network outputs must be seen in the Matlab workspace; double click the network
output to view its values.

22
 CHAPTER 4

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 COEFFICIENT AND CORRELATION (R VALUE)

By using the MatLab Software on the nntool, the independent variables (Past
water level of Quirino and Ugong Bridge, Precipitation from Pacweld and Valenzuela
National High School rain station, Temperature) will serve as an input and the water level
as dependent variables. In this work, the researchers developed models to predict the
water level of the Tullahan River. A process of Feed-Forward Back Propagation was used
to simulate the network. The number of neurons used is 3 and the number of layers is 2 to
get a satisfying results. The selection of the final structures, the number of hidden nodes,
was a trial and-error procedure until it satisfies the given R Value. The R Values are
shown below.

Figure 4.1.1 Correlation Values (R)

23
 Table 4.1 Data used as independent variables obtained from PAGASA.

Quirino Bridge (Water Level) Ugong Bridge (Water Level) Pacweld Station (Rainfall) Valenzuela NHS (Rainfall) Valenzuela Temperature Tullahan Ugong (Actual Water Level)
37.03 12.98 0.1 0.1 36 13.5
37.02 13.02 1.5 0.1 35 13.48
37.14 13.17 5 5.5 33 13.69
37.11 13.21 2.5 4.5 35 13.51
37.04 13.00 0.1 0.1 35 13.5
37.11 12.63 13 3 32 13.48
37.62 13.61 22.5 53 32 13.43
37.18 11.07 1.5 0.1 32 13.48
37.17 13.34 23.5 12.5 28 13.54
38.00 14.30 97 98.5 28 13.46
37.37 13.62 19 18 27 13.45
37.93 14.23 99 97.5 27 13.39
37.35 13.60 25 13 27 13.4
37.56 13.85 50 53 30 13.38
37.36 13.68 35 27 31 13.38
37.23 13.41 9 8.5 31 13.43
37.36 13.61 25 23.5 31 13.41
37.17 13.32 5.5 5.5 32 13.63
37.11 13.17 0.1 0.1 33 13.4
37.09 13.10 0.1 0.1 32 13.38
37.08 13.09 21.5 17.5 31 13.49
37.51 13.72 49 72 31 13.46
37.17 13.35 7 4 34 13.39
37.22 13.37 14.5 18 32 13.37
37.11 13.22 0 0 31 13.35
37.26 13.44 11.5 24 30 13.37
37.14 13.29 3.5 3.5 33 13.33
37.09 13.20 0.1 0.1 32 13.34
37.07 13.16 8.5 0.1 32 13.34
37.09 13.22 2.5 0.1 31 13.31
37.13 13.19 0.5 1.5 31 13.88
37.13 13.34 17 15 31 13.49

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Table 4.1.2 Actual data and predicted data for the month of October.

Actual Data Predicted Data

13.50 13.47
13.48 13.46
13.69 13.76
13.51 13.44
13.50 13.43
13.48 13.41
13.43 13.40
13.48 13.54
13.54 13.61
13.46 13.43
13.45 13.42
13.38 13.37
13.40 13.36
13.38 13.31
13.38 13.36
13.43 13.48
13.63 13.70
13.40 13.37
13.38 13.35
13.49 13.42
13.46 13.44
13.39 13.31
13.37 13.32
13.35 13.43
13.37 13.40
13.33 13.41
13.34 13.28
13.34 13.32
13.31 13.29
13.88 13.86
13.49 13.56

25
 Comparison of Actual and Predicted Water level
of Tullahan River for the Month of October

14.00
13.90
13.80
13.70
13.60
13.50
13.40
13.30
13.20
13.10
13.00
12.90

DAY 23
DAY 6
DAY 1
DAY 2
DAY 3
DAY 4
DAY 5

DAY 7
DAY 8
DAY 9
DAY 10
DAY 11
DAY 12
DAY 13
DAY 14
DAY 15
DAY 16
DAY 17
DAY 18
DAY 19
DAY 20
DAY 21
DAY 22

DAY 24
DAY 25
DAY 26
DAY 27
DAY 28
DAY 29
DAY 30
DAY 31
Actual Water level Predicted Water level

Figure 4.1.2 Comparison of the actual and predicted data for the month of
October.

The behavior in time of the model is compared against experimental data for
several days in Figure 4.2. Time is measured in days and has a relative meaning only.
The error between the values of computed and measured water levels is also reported for
each time step, and a minimal error can be noted with respect to the value of the water
level. Results obtained with this model proved that information given as input is
sufficient to capture the output.

26
 CHAPTER 5

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

5.1 SUMMARY

A neural network approach was used to study the effectiveness of the prediction
of water level of Tullahan river using different variables (Past water levels from Ugong
and Quirino Bridge, Precipitations from Pacweld and Valenzuela National High School
stations and the temperature of Valenzuela). The selection of variables was according to
the availability of data but limited according to the scope and limitations of the study.
After extracting the data needed, simulations were made on a trial and error basis. Three
(3) neurons, two (2) hidden layers and learning algorithm of scaled conjugate gradient
were the best options according to the trial and error made. Upon the successful
simulation, a correlation value (R) of 0.96438 was obtained and it defines that the
relationship of the variables used is in good terms to predict the water level of Tullahan
river.

5.2 CONCLUSION

The researchers concluded that the predicted values obtained from simulation of
input variables (Water level of Quirino and Ugong Bridge, Precipitation from Pacweld
and Valenzuela National High School rain station, Temperature) in Matlab software, the
result of predicted values of water level were almost identical to the real or actual values

27
given by the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services
Administration (PAG-ASA). The correlation gives a value of 0.96438, which is nearly
equal to 1 thus, proves that the predicted water level values was somewhat correlated and
has a good relationship with the actual water level values.

28
 CHAPTER 6

RECOMMENDATIONS

6.1 RECOMMENDATIONS

The researchers recommend to increase but check the limitation of the number of
samples in each variables to increase the precision and accuracy of the values that would
be obtained from Matlab. The increase in the number of variables was also recommended
in order to provide an increase in variation. For future study, the researchers recommend
to apply more new and accurate method of prediction. The use of different but more
efficient and effective learning algorithm in predicting were also recommended.

29
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Bowles, Z. (2003, October 9). artificial neural network predictions of water levels in a
gulf of mexico shallow embayment. Revista de Matematica: Teoria y
Aplicaciones , p. 11.

Bustami, R. (2007). Artificial Neural Network for Precipitation and. IAENG International
Journal of Computer Science, 6.

Cigizoglu, H. (2008). Irjet. Retrieved from Integration of Information for Environmental

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Gan, X. (2011). The research of rainfall prediction models based on Matlab neural
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Maind, M. S. (2014). Research Paper on Basic of Artificial Neural Network.

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Matsuzawa, M. (2015, August 2). Waiting for flood waters': Some residents near
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residents-near-tullahan-river-refuse-to-evacuate.html

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