Comparative study of forecasting approaches in monthly streamflow series from Brazilian hydroelectric plants using Extreme Learning Machines and Box & Jenkins models

Several activities regarding water resources management are dependent on accurate monthly streamflow forecasting, such as flood control, reservoir operation, water supply planning, hydropower generation, energy matrix planning, among others. Most of the literature is focused on propose, compare, and evaluate the forecasting models. However, the decision on forecasting approaches plays a significant role in such models’ performance. In this paper, we are focused on investigating and confront the following forecasting approaches: i) use of a single model for the whole series (annual approach) versus using 12 models, each one responsible for predicting each month (monthly approach); ii) for multistep forecasting, the use of direct and recursive methods. The forecasting models addressed are the linear Autoregressive (AR) and Periodic Autoregressive (PAR) models, from the Box & Jenkins family, and the Extreme Learning Machines (ELM), an artificial neural network architecture. The computational analysis involves 20 time series associated with hydroelectric plants indicated that the monthly approach with the direct multistep method achieved the best overall performances, except for the cases in which the coefficient of variation is higher than two. In this case, the recursive approach stood out. Also, the ELM overcame the linear models in most cases.