A priori physical information to aid generalization capabilities of neural networks for hydraulic modeling

The application of Neural Networks to river hydraulics and flood mapping is fledgling, despite the field suffering from data scarcity, a challenge for machine learning techniques. Consequently, many purely data-driven Neural Networks have shown limited capabilities when tasked with predicting new sc...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Gianmarco Guglielmo, Andrea Montessori, Jean-Michel Tucny, Michele La Rocca, Pietro Prestininzi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2025-01-01
Series:Frontiers in Complex Systems
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Online Access:https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcpxs.2024.1508091/full
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Summary:The application of Neural Networks to river hydraulics and flood mapping is fledgling, despite the field suffering from data scarcity, a challenge for machine learning techniques. Consequently, many purely data-driven Neural Networks have shown limited capabilities when tasked with predicting new scenarios. In this work, we propose introducing physical information into the training phase in the form of a regularization term. Whereas this idea is formally borrowed from Physics-Informed Neural Networks, the proposed methodology does not necessarily resort to PDEs, making it suitable for scenarios with significant epistemic uncertainties, such as river hydraulics. The method enriches the information content of the dataset and appears highly versatile. It shows improved predictive capabilities for a highly controllable, synthetic hydraulic problem, even when extrapolating beyond the boundaries of the training dataset and in data-scarce scenarios. Therefore, our study lays the groundwork for future employment on real datasets from complex applications.
ISSN:2813-6187