Environ Earth Sci (2012) 67:251264
DOI 10.1007/s12665-011-1504-z
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
An artificial neural network model for flood simulation using GIS:
Johor River Basin, Malaysia
Masoud Bakhtyari Kia Saied Pirasteh
Biswajeet Pradhan Ahmad Rodzi Mahmud
Wan Nor Azmin Sulaiman Abbas Moradi
Received: 8 November 2010 / Accepted: 13 December 2011 / Published online: 31 December 2011
 Springer-Verlag 2011
Abstract Flooding is one of the most destructive natural
hazards that cause damage to both life and property every
year, and therefore the development of flood model to
determine inundation area in watersheds is important for
decision makers. In recent years, data mining approaches
such as artificial neural network (ANN) techniques are
being increasingly used for flood modeling. Previously, this
ANN method was frequently used for hydrological and
flood modeling by taking rainfall as input and runoff data
as output, usually without taking into consideration of other
flood causative factors. The specific objective of this study
is to develop a flood model using various flood causative
factors using ANN techniques and geographic information
system (GIS) to modeling and simulate flood-prone areas in
the southern part of Peninsular Malaysia. The ANN model
for this study was developed in MATLAB using seven
flood causative factors. Relevant thematic layers (including
rainfall, slope, elevation, flow accumulation, soil, land use,
and geology) are generated using GIS, remote sensing data,
and field surveys. In the context of objective weight
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this
article (doi:10.1007/s12665-011-1504-z) contains supplementary
material, which is available to authorized users.
M. B. Kia  B. Pradhan (&)  A. R. Mahmud
Institute of Advanced Technology (ITMA),
University Putra Malaysia (UPM), 43400 Serdang,
Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
e-mail: biswajeet@mailcity.com; biswajeet24@gmail.com
S. Pirasteh
Dezful Branch, Islamic Azad University, Dezful, Iran
W. N. A. Sulaiman  A. Moradi
Faculty of Environmental Studies, University Putra Malaysia,
Serdang, Malaysia
assignments, the ANN is used to directly produce water
levels and then the flood map is constructed in GIS. To
measure the performance of the model, four criteria per-
formances, including a coefficient of determination (R2),
the sum squared error, the mean square error, and the root
mean square error are used. The verification results showed
satisfactory agreement between the predicted and the real
hydrological records. The results of this study could be
used to help local and national government plan for the
future and develop appropriate (to the local environmental
conditions) new infrastructure to protect the lives and
property of the people of Johor.
Keywords Flood modeling  Neural network  GIS 
Remote sensing  Spatial modeling  Johor  Malaysia
Introduction
Globally, floods are frequent natural disasters that cause
severe damage to both lives and property. It is estimated
that of the total economic loss caused by all kinds of
disasters, 40% are due to flooding (Feng and Lu 2010).
Recurring floods is a severe problem in Malaysia causing
many deaths. In Malaysia, floods are the most important
natural hazard in terms of population affected, frequency,
areal extent, and socio-economic damage (Pradhan and
Youssef 2011). According to the Department of Irrigation
and Drainage (DID), 9% of land area (29,800 km2) in the
country is prone to flood, 22% of the population (4.82
million) is affected by floods (Fig. 1), and the average
annual flood damage is about USD 0.3 billion (Pradhan
2010).
In Malaysia, there are many reports available on flood-
ing since the 1920s. According to DID, Malaysia has
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Fig. 1 a Flood-prone area in
west of Malaysia (Hassan and
Ghani 2006) and b location of
the study area
experienced major floods in the past decades and most
recently in December 2006 and January 2007 which
severely affected Johor state. In fact, during the recent
20062007 floods in Johor a couple of abnormally heavy
rainfall events caused massive flooding. The estimated total
cost in terms of loss of property of these flood disasters
amounted to USD 0.5 billion, considered as one of the most
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Environ Earth Sci (2012) 67:251264
costly flood events in Malaysian history. At the peak of the
recent Johor flood, around 110,000 people were evacuated
and moved to relief centers and the death toll was 18 lives.
Despite large costs to manage and control of these floods
in Malaysia, flooding occurs repeatedly every year in
various parts of the country, destroying property and killing
people each year (Pradhan 2010a). Even though flood
Environ Earth Sci (2012) 67:251264
events are unavoidable (Maidment 2002; Youssef et al.
2011), to reduce the losses, authorities and the general
public should know when and where the next flood is going
to happen and what areas are going to be inundated due to
such events. Therefore, there is a need to develop an
accurate technique for flood forecasting in order to prevent
future disasters.
Hydrologists have a long history of research into con-
structing models of hydrological processes. It is the goal of
flood modeling to provide timely and accurate estimates of
future discharge conditions at specific watershed locations.
The wide variety of available forecasting techniques used
by the hydrologists today, include physically based rain-
fall-runoff modeling techniques, data-driven techniques,
and varying degrees of combination of the both, with
forecasts ranging in scale from short-term involving a
number of hours, through to long-term involving a number
of months or years (Smith and Ward 1998).
Although hydrologists have used many models to pre-
dict flooding, the problem remains. Some of the models
cannot cope with dynamic changes inside the watersheds.
Some models are too difficult to calibrate and need to have
robust optimization tools and some models require an
understanding of the physical processes inside the basin.
These problems have lead to exploration of a more data-
driven approach (Varoonchotikul 2003).
In recent years, there have been many studies on flood
susceptibility and hazard mapping using remote sensing
data and GIS tools. Radar remote sensing data have been
extensively used for flood monitoring across the globe
(Hess et al. 1995, 1990; Pradhan and Shafie 2009; Pirasteh
et al. 2010) and many of these studies have applied prob-
abilistic methods (Farajzadeh 2001, 2002; Horritt and
Bates 2002; Pradhan and Shafie 2009). Hydrological and
stochastic rainfall method for flood susceptibility mapping
has been employed in other areas (Blazkova and Beven
1997; Cunderlik and Burn 2002). Flood susceptibility
mapping using GIS and neural network methods have also
been applied in various case studies (Islam and Sado 2001,
2002; Dixon 2005).
Therefore, to increase the precision of flood models and
to cope with some of the above limitations, in recent years,
several hydrological studies have used new techniques such
as ANN, fuzzy logic and neuro-fuzzy to make flood pre-
dictions (Dixon 2005). These techniques are capable of
dealing with uncertainties in the inputs and can extract
information from incomplete or contradictory datasets
(Rashid et al. 1992; Pradhan 2010a, b, c, 2011a, b; Pradhan
et al. 2006, 2010a, b, c, d; Rogers et al. 1995; Pradhan and
Youssef 2010; Oh and Pradhan 2011; Sezer et al. 2011;
Lorrai and Sechi 1995; Tamari et al. 1996; Woldt et al.
1996; Holger and Dandy 1996; Zhu et al. 1997; Schaap
et al. 1998; Lin et al. 1999; Ray and Klindworth 2000; See
253
and Openshaw 2000; Liu and Chandrashekar 2000; Dixon
2005). These new methods are frequently developed for
hydrological and flood modeling only with rainfall and
runoff as input and output, usually without taking into
consideration of other flood causative factors. The specific
objective of this study is to develop a flood model using
various flood causative factors using ANN technique and
GIS to modeling and simulation of flood-prone areas at
Johor River Basin, Malaysia.
This paper is presented in seven major sections: firstly,
Introduction to the paper, followed by Study area which
presents the data and methodology used. Thirdly, Data set,
which presents the background of artificial neural network
model, then Flood simulation, which presents the appli-
cation of neural network in the Johor River Basin, followed
by Flood map generated by ANN, which consists of the
main results and discussion, followed by Model perfor-
mance assessments and finally, the paper summarizes the
conclusion in Discussion and conclusions.
Study area
The Johor River Basin is located at the South-east of
Peninsular Malaysia (Fig. 1). The river originates from
Gunung Belumut (at an elevation of 1,010 m) and Bukit
Gemuruh (at an elevation of 109 m) in the north of basin. It
flows south-east to discharge into the Johor Straits. Natural
forest and low land swamps are the dominant land cover in
the northern and central part, and oil palm and rubber
plantations with swamps occupied the southern part of the
basin. The most important population center is Kota
Tinggi, the administrative center of the Kota Tinggi Dis-
trict. Average annual rainfall is 2,500 mm and the mean
annual discharge at Rantau Panjang station (1,130 km2) is
37.7 m3/s. The catchment area of Johor River at Kota
Tinggi is about 1,620 km2. The main tributaries of this
river are Sayong, Linggiu, Semanggar, Tiram and Lebam.
The data set
Like most modeling methods, the techniques used in this
research are based on the well-known principle of past
and today are keys to the future. In order to develop the
flood model, understanding and determination of flood
causative factors are crucial for this study area. These
factors are selected based on the knowledge acquired from
a literature review and from previous research such as the
United Nations Environment Program (UNEP 2002),
Kingma (2002), Smith and Ward (1998), World Meteoro-
logical Organization (WMO 2008), and field studies.
Although many factors may be important with respect to the
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flood occurrence for a particular region, the same factors may
not be important for other regions (Pradhan 2010a).
Hence, different thematic data layers corresponding to
causative and intensifying flood factors, namely, topogra-
phy, topographic slope, soil, land cover/land use, lithology,
and drainage were prepared as input for this study. Besides
the intense rainfall, these factors are classified as direct and
indirect causative factors in floods. They are considered as
being responsible for flood occurrence in the study area.
DEM and its derivatives
Topography, as an intensifying factor, plays an important
role in flood severity and for the determination of a flood-
prone area. On one hand, topographic factors have a direct
effect on flow size and runoff velocity. On the other hand,
river flood-prone areas mostly have low elevation and also
slight topographic slope.
Digital elevation models (DEM) are an excellent source
to derive topographic factors responsible for flood activity
in a region. Because the results of the flooding model have
to show on the DEM to define flood-prone areas, the DEM
must have appropriate accuracy (Pradhan 2009). Therefore,
a DEM has been generated from contours on 1:25,000
topographic maps (Fig. 2a).
Topographic slope is defined as the angle between the
surface and a horizontal datum. It means that gravity has an
effect in inducing runoff and its velocity. Therefore, this
factor is very important in hydrology (Gomez and Ka-
vzoglu 2005). Although the steeper slopes produce more
rapid flows, floods tend to occur on gentle slopes. The
estimation of the slope angle for the Johor basin was
derived from the DEM and divided into four classes
(Fig. 2b). Nearly 64% of the Johor basin has slope angles
ranging from 0 to 5. The mean slope angle is 6 while the
maximum slope angle is 49.
Many of the floods occur in the high density drainage due
to accumulation of a large quantity of water. To build this
layer, a drainage data layer has been prepared from the DEM
with the flow direction for each filled DEM cell one of the
keys to deriving the hydrologic characteristics of a surface.
This function directs the flow out of each cell (Fig. 2c).
The values in the resultant pixels of the flow direction
grid indicate the direction of the steepest descent from that
pixel. Later, the flow accumulation was computed using the
accumulated number of pixels in upstream. The results of
flow accumulation can be used to create a stream network
by classification of pixel values (Fig. 2d).
Geology
The watershed has different geological formations. The
major rock units, which occupy about 67% of the study
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Environ Earth Sci (2012) 67:251264
area are granite, adamellite, and minor granodiorite
(source: Depart of Mineral & Geosciences, Malaysia).
The Riverine and swamp alluvium, colluviums, sand, silt
and clay with some gravel occupy about 10% of the
study area along the river valleys. The center of water-
shed and around the Linggui Dam lake are covered by
massive cross-bedded sandstone with intercalations of
maroon and greenish gray mudstone, and grit (about
7%). The sandstone, siltstone, conglomerate, shale, tuff
and lava are found in the south-east part of the lake and
cover about 4.2%. Acid to intermediate pyroclastics,
lava, shale and microadamellite are other geological
formations in this area. The geological map is shown in
the Fig. 2e.
Soil types
The study area is characterized by five different types of soil
series. The most dominant soil series of the study area is
Ultisols. This soil occupies about 73% of the study area.
Steep lands comprise about 16.5% of study area and are
found in the north and north east part of the watershed. En-
tisols covers about 8.3% and are found mainly along the
stream valleys. Main lands are found in the eastern part of the
watershed center, whereas small patches of Oxisols are
found in the south-east part of the study area. Spatial distri-
bution of major soil series in the study area is shown in
Fig. 2f.
Land use
Land use and type of land cover are also key factors
responsible for flood incidence. The occurrence of flooding
is inversely related to the vegetation density. Rain falls on
the barren slopes run over the surface rapidly as compared
to the forest area. Consequently, some land use areas (for
instance, high percentage of cropland or urban land use)
yield more storm runoff in comparison with similar areas
which are covered by grassland or forest. To define this
factor, the layer was prepared and seven dominant land use
land cover classes namely forest, agriculture, mine area,
built up, water bodies, barren area and swamp have been
considered (Fig. 2g).
Rainfall and runoff data
To develop a flood model, rainfall and simultaneous
runoff data were obtained from seven rain gauges and one
water level station within the Johor River Basin area; the
summary of the rain gauge data is shown in Table 1. In
total, 267 samples of highest pick discharges (flood
events) and their rainfalls, as published by the DID, were
selected.
Environ Earth Sci (2012) 67:251264 255

Fig. 2 Input thematic layers: a DEM, b slope angle, c flow direction, d flow accumulation, e geology, f soil types, and g land use

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Fig. 2 continued

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Environ Earth Sci (2012) 67:251264 257

Table 1 Summary of the rain gauges of Johor River Basin

Stations no. 1,737,001 1,834,001 1,833,123 1,834,122 1,835,001 1,836,001 1,739,002

Mean annual rainfall (mm) 1,946.8 1,844.6 2,111.1 2,058.9 2,601.2 2,285 2,345.3
Minimum annual rainfall (mm) 1,251 865.2 1,225 1,355.5 1,847.5 1,291 1,292
Maximum annual rainfall (mm) 2,613.9 2,929 3,014 2,575.7 5,152.5 3,274 3,178
Period of record 198705 198905 198706 198706 198706 198706 198797

Flood simulation 1997). The number of neurons in output layers is fixed by

Artificial neural networks
ANNs are mathematical models of human perception that
can be trained for performing a particular task based on
available empirical data. When the relationships between
data are unknown, they can make a powerful tool for
modeling (Lek et al. 1996; Lek and Guegan 1999; Mas
2004; Pradhan and Buchroithner 2010; Pradhan and Lee
2009, 2010a, b, c; Pradhan and Pirasteh 2010). The theory
and mathematical basis of ANNs are explained in detail by
many researchers (Bishop 1995; Haykin 1999). Therefore,
a brief description is presented here.
As shown in Fig. 3, an ANN includes a number of
neurons or nodes that work in parallel to transform the
input data into output categories. Typically, an ANN con-
sists of three layers namely input, hidden layers and output.
Each layer, depending on the specific application in a
network, has some neurons. Each neuron is connected to
the application and is represented by the class being pro-
cessed. Each hidden neuron responds to the weighted
inputs it receives from the connected neurons from the
preceding input layer. Once the combined effect on each
hidden neuron is determined, the activation at this neuron
is determined via a transfer function. Many differentiable
nonlinear functions are available as a transfer function.
Since the sigmoid function enables a network to map any
nonlinear process, most networks of practical interest make
use of it (Bishop 1994; ASCE Task Committee 2000).
A typical artificial neuron and the modeling of a mul-
tilayered neural network are illustrated in Fig. 3. Referring
to this Fig. 3, the signal flow from inputs x1, , xn is
considered to be unidirectional, which are indicated by
arrows, as is a neurons output signal flow (O). The neuron
output signal O is given by the following relationship:
!
X n
O f net f wj xi ; 1
j1

other neurons in the next consecutive layer by direct links. where wj is the weight vector, and the function f(net) is
These links have a weight that represents the strength of referred to as an activation (transfer) function. The variable
outgoing signal (Atkinson and Tatnall 1997; Var- net is defined as a scalar product of the weight and input
oonchotikul 2003).
vectors,
The input layer receives the data from different sources
(e.g., thematic layers). Hence, the number of neurons in the net wT x w1 x1 w2 x2    wn xn ; 2
input layer depends on the number of input data sources. where T is the transpose of a matrix, and, in the simplest
The data are processed in hidden and output layers case, the output value O is computed as
actively. The number of hidden layers and their neurons are 
1 if wT x  h
often defined by trial and error (Atkinson and Tatnall O f net ; 3
0 if otherwise
where h is called the threshold level, and this type of node
is called a linear threshold unit (Abraham 2005).
Input 1
Application of ANN to flood simulation
Input 2
Output The ANN flood model development consisted of three
Input 3 steps: the ANN architecture, training, and testing (Principe
et al. 1999).
Input 4
ANN architectures

Fig. 3 Architecture of a multilayer neural network and an artificial

The ANN architecture refers to the number of layers and
neuron connection weights. It also defines the flow of information

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in the ANN network. Design of a suitable structure is the
most important and also the most difficult part in the ANN
modeling process (Maier and Dandy 1996). There are no
strict rules to define the number of hidden layers and
neurons in the literature. Most researchers have been using
the trial and error method to determine them. Although
some studies use a single hidden layer in ANN architecture,
Sarle (1994) showed that a higher flexibility can be taken
using more than one hidden layer and subsequently they
used two hidden layers as starting point (Flood and Kartam
1994; Tamura and Tateishi 1997). However, the optimal
design of ANN architectures depends on the type of
problem under investigation.
In this research, a three-interconnection ANN architecture
comprises an input layer, two hidden layers, and an output
layer was used. The input layer contains seven neurons (one
each for elevation, topographic slope, flow accumulation,
geology, land use, soil, and rainfall data) each representing a
causative factor that contributes to the occurrence of the flood
in the catchment. The output layer contains a single neuron
representing river flow. The hidden layers and their number of
neurons are used to define the complex relationship between
the input and output variables.
Fig. 4 A schematic architecture of ANN for flood modeling
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Environ Earth Sci (2012) 67:251264
Once the input and output variables were defined, to
identify the hidden layers neurons, the ANN architecture
7-NN-1 (which N represent the number of neuron in
hidden layers) was examined (Fig. 4).
Training of the network
The aim of training process is to decrease the error between
the ANN output and the real data by changing the weight
values based on a given algorithm (Pradhan and Lee
2010a). Typically, back-propagation algorithms are used
by the ANN at this stage.
A successful ANN model can predict target data from a
given set of input data. Once the minimal error is achieved
and training is completed, the feed-forward structure is
applied by ANN to generate a classification of the whole
data set (Paola and Schowengerdt 1995).
The flowchart for the determination of weights in ANN
is shown in Fig. 5. The weights between different layers
were calculated by training the ANN through a reverse
calculation process in which the contribution or importance
of each factor was computed. Then, the contribution or
importance of each factor, i.e., the weight, was determined.
Environ Earth Sci (2012) 67:251264
Fig. 5 Flow chart showing weight determination of flood factors
using ANN model (modified after Pradhan and Lee 2010a)
To train the ANN, a 7-NN-1 format was used in this
study, where N represents the hidden layer nodes. By
varying the number of neurons in both hidden layers, the
neural networks were run several times to identify the most
appropriate neural network architecture based on training
and testing accuracies. Therefore, the neurons in the hidden
layers were changed by repeating the training process 20
times and then taking the minimum mean square error.
The values of neurons in the first and second layers were
checked from 7 to 25 and 3 to 14, respectively. For each
ANN configuration the training procedure was repeated
starting from independent initial conditions and ultimately
ensuring selection of the best performing network. The
decreasing trend in the minimum mean square error in the
training and validation sets was used to decide the optimal
learning. The training was stopped when the minimum
mean square error was achieved. This was done by adding
an early stopping technique in the MATLAB software.
This is an indication of the network getting over-trained; as
such an ANN would perform very well in the training stage
but would fail to maintain that level of performance when
applied to a different dataset.
The over-fitting error can occur during the training
stage. In over-fitting error, however, the training set error is
very small, but the error is large when new data are used
and the new solution cannot be generalized to a new situ-
ation by ANN. The early stopping method is used to pre-
vent this error during training. In this method, to develop
259
the algorithms, the training of ANN, and to prevent any
over-fitting error, the data are divided into three indepen-
dent parts: training, validation, and testing. The training
part is used for training and updating the parameters of the
ANN. The error in validation part is checked during the
training stage. Normally, the error of validation is reduced
during the initial stage of training. When over-fitting is
started, the validation error is increased. When the vali-
dation error increases for a specified number of iterations,
the training is stopped, and the weights that produced the
minimum error on the validation set are retrieved.
In this study, the data were randomly selected, i.e. 60%
used for training, 20% used for validation purpose in order
to stop training before over-fitting, and the remaining 20%
were used as a completely independent test of the network
generalization. The aim of this part is to confirm the ANN
accuracy by application of untrained data in the model.
The multilayer perceptron (MLP) program has been
used in MATLAB software. The input portions of the
program were modified for the easy computation and
handling of GIS data. The LevenbergMarquardt algorithm
has been used to construct the input files, scaling (nor-
malized) the data, train the network and doing needed post-
processing to obtain model output (Pradhan and Lee
2010a).
The number of epochs was set to 2,000, and the sum
square error (SSE) value used for the stopping criterion
was set to 0.001. The experimental data sets met the 0.001
SSE goals in the case of 0 slopes (ESM Fig. 1). However,
if the SSE value was not achieved then the maximum
number of iterations was terminated at 2,000 epochs. The
rate of change of SSE is displayed on the training set (blue
line), the validation set (green line) and test (red line)
(ESM Fig. 2). The validation and test lines in ESM Fig. 2
are very similar. As can be observed in ESM Fig. 2, the
rate of change was very similar and the error is scaled
down with increasing epoch, and it reached to 5.6498e-05
at epoch 1,811. This indicates a good fit meaning that the
ANN is well trained and it can be used to predict and
modeling.
Seven input nodes each representing flood causative
parameters including rainfall, slope, elevation, soil, geol-
ogy, flow accumulation, and land use were used during the
ANN modeling. These factors are denoted as I1, I2, I3, I4,
I5, I6 and I7, respectively (Table 2). The 20 hidden nodes
are denoted as HA1 to HA20 (Table 2, column 1). Table 2
shows the weight connections changes between the input
and first hidden layers. From Table 2, it can be observed
that there is little variation in maximum and minimum
connection weights between the input and hidden layers
nodes except the rainfall parameter (I1). For the rainfall
parameter (I1), the variation between maximum and mini-
mum connection weights are larger than other factors (e.g.
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I2, I3, , I7) in the corresponding input layers. This indi-
cates that rainfall factor is the main factor in training of the
neural network compared to the other inputs. For the ANN
modeling, we used a back-propagated algorithm to adjust
and tune the connection weights between the inputs, first
hidden, second hidden and output layers (Pradhan et al.
2010a). In the algorithms used here, the error and variation
between the ANN outputs and measured data (target) are
back propagated through the ANN and are minimized by
updating interconnection weights between the layers
(Arora et al. 2004; Lee et al. 2004; Pradhan et al. 2010a, b;
Pradhan and Lee 2010b), the best weight adjustment may
happen between first hidden and second hidden layers.
The ANN training results are shown in ESM Fig. 2. In this
figure the observed river flow and ANN training results are
compared. High and low river flow values are predicted very
well, and there is high convergence and good agreement
between the predicted flows and observed data. Generally,
the relationship between the observed and predicted data is
shown by regression plot. Since the ANN is perfectly trained,
the ANN output equals the predicted data (ESM Fig. 3).
The next step was to investigate this data point in order
to determine if it represents extrapolation (i.e., is it outside
of the training data set). If so, then it should be included in
the training set, and additional data should be collected to
be used as the test set.
Testing the network
After ANN training process is completed, different datasets
(testing data) were used to extend, and to determine the
model accuracy. Using new data, the network performance
was evaluated. These data had the same properties as the
training data but they had not been used during the training
of the model.
An important result in testing these data was that the
ANN was able to identify all values same as training stage.
This result yields a R2 value of 1 which is acceptable result
and it shows a high level of prediction. The simulated and
ANN predicted river flow, and the regression plot are
shown in ESM Figs. 4 and 5, respectively.
Flood map generated by ANN
Flood maps will be helpful for disaster planning in addition
to an actual emergency response to the floods. Estimation
of the flood inundation area is the most important duty and
highest priority for decision makers and most relevant for
national and local governments. The outputs of the ANN
model can be used in GIS for visualization of the flood
extent and the flood inundation areas. This map is the best
tool to quickly use as a potential impact assessment and for

Table 2 Input (I)hidden layer 1 (HA) connection weights

Node I1 (rainfall) I2 (slope) I3 (elevation) I4 (soil) I5 (geology) I6 (flow accumulation) I7 (land use)

HA1 23.6799 -9.9E-09 1.6E-09 1.6E-09 -3.2E-09 -1.3E-09 -4.1E-09

HA2 0.2785 1.4E-05 -2.6E-06 -2.3E-06 5.1E-06 1.8E-06 6.2E-06
HA3 -1.4384 -5.2E-06 1.0E-06 8.4E-07 -1.9E-06 -6.2E-07 -2.4E-06
HA4 -10.7464 1.7E-06 -2.9E-07 -2.6E-07 3.7E-07 2.1E-07 6.9E-07
HA5 2.0906 -2.1E-07 3.8E-08 3.2E-08 -6.8E-08 -2.3E-08 -9.1E-08
HA6 3.6231 1.0E-05 -1.8E-06 -1.6E-06 3.3E-06 1.3E-06 4.2E-06
HA7 5.3119 4.4E-07 -8.1E-08 -6.9E-08 1.5E-07 5.5E-08 1.9E-07
HA8 0.1299 3.6E-06 -6.3E-07 -5.9E-07 1.2E-06 4.9E-07 1.5E-06
HA9 -2.9412 1.8E-06 -3.1E-07 -2.8E-07 5.6E-07 2.3E-07 7.4E-07
HA10 -26.4989 2.5E-08 -4.6E-09 -3.8E-09 8.2E-09 2.7E-09 1.1E-08
HA11 -0.6151 2.1E-07 -3.2E-08 -3.2E-08 5.5E-08 2.8E-08 7.8E-08
HA12 4.4757 -1.2E-06 2.2E-07 1.9E-07 -4.2E-07 -1.4E-07 -5.2E-07
HA13 4.2550 1.8E-06 -3.2E-07 -2.9E-07 5.9E-07 2.4E-07 7.7E-07
HA14 -0.5180 -6.8E-06 1.2E-06 1.1E-06 -2.2E-06 -8.2E-07 -2.8E-06
HA15 1.0745 5.4E-05 -9.4E-06 -8.6E-06 1.7E-05 6.9E-06 2.2E-05
HA16 9.6419 -2.6E-07 4.7E-08 4.2E-08 -9.1E-08 -3.0E-08 -1.1E-07
HA17 4.3609 -3.1086 0.673 0.5908 -1.213 -0.421 -1.634
HA18 -1.1144 6.0E-05 -1.1E-05 -8.9E-06 1.9E-05 6.0E-06 2.5E-05
HA19 1.05169 -3.7E-05 6.2E-06 5.2E-06 -9.7E-06 -3.3E-06 -1.5E-05
HA20 -3.6817 3.3E-07 -5.4E-08 -5.3E-08 9.8E-08 4.6E-08 1.3E-07

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Environ Earth Sci (2012) 67:251264
Fig. 6 The comparison of simulated flood hydrographs with
observed hydrographs at the Kota Tinggi gauging stations
rescue operations for any flood as well as to compute the
type and number of buildings affected by the flood.
To further extend the model performance, the ANN
model was used to simulate recent floods in January 2007
that occurred in the Johor state. In fact, during the
20062007 Johor flood (due to a couple of abnormally
heavy rainfall events which caused massive floods) the
estimated total cost of these flood disasters valued at UDS
0.5 billion considered the most costly flood event in
Malaysian history. At the peak of that Johor flood, around
110,000 people were evacuated and sheltered in relief
centers and the death toll was 18 persons. The simulated
hydrograph is compared to observed river flow for this
event at Kota Tinggi station (Fig. 6). At this station, three
critical flood levels are designated by DID, namely Alert
(1.7 m), Warning (2.2 m) and Danger (2.7).
Fig. 7 Flood inundation area in
January 2007 at Johor River
Basin
261
Comparison between the forecasted and observed river
flow in Fig. 6 indicates that the accuracy of model is
quite good, especially in high river flows. Since the
topography is the main factor to specify the flood
inundation extent, the DEM map was used to determine
the flood-prone area. The flood inundation area is
derived from the DEM based on water levels in the river
cross-section (Fig. 7).
Model performance assessments
The model accuracy assessment is described in terms of the
error of forecasting or the variation between the observed
and predicted values. In the literature, there are many
performance assessment methods for measuring the accu-
racy and each one has advantages and limitations. In this
study, the most widely used methods namely coefficient of
determination (R2), sum squared error (SSE), mean squared
error (MSE), and root mean squared error (RMSE) were
used to check the performance of the ANN. Each method is
estimated from the ANN predicted values and the mea-
sured discharges (targets).
To check the model performance, the multilayered
perceptron (MLP) was used for forecasting flood events
and was calculated based on both training and testing data
(Table 3). The MLP model forecasting results produced
excellent agreement with the real data at determination
coefficient (R2). These values are 1 for MLP training and
testing data. The results showed that the model has less
SSE, MSE, and RMSE. Overall, the errors were negligible.
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262 Environ Earth Sci (2012) 67:251264

Table 3 Comparison of model performance for MLP during training watershed infiltration, geomorphology, etc. There exists a
and testing very complicated relationship between these factors, and
Train Test they have significant influence on each other and on the
runoff. Understanding these factors and the interaction
R2 1 1
between them are necessary for hydrological modeling.
SSE 6.5E-08 6.4E-08 This study gives a detailed selection of the most important
MSE 4.9E-12 4.9E-12 flood causative factors and an understanding of the inter-
RMSE 2.5E-23 2.4E-23 actions between them.
The sensitivity analysis performed here shows that the
elevation is the most important factor for flood susceptibility
Table 4 Sensitivity analysis results for the input factors mapping. The average normalized value shows that eleva-
tion has the highest weight values (R2 = 0.931) followed by
Factors SSE MSE RMSE R2
slope (R2 = 0.963) and then landuse (R2 = 0.986). The
Slope 3.70 0.00028 0.01687 0.963 scientific weights and ratings are essential to flood suscep-
Elevation 4.13 0.00032 0.01782 0.931 tibility mapping. The back-propagation training algorithm
Soil 2.37 0.00018 0.01350 0.988 presents difficulties when trying to follow the internal pro-
Geology 5.28 0.00041 0.02015 0.990 cesses of the procedure. The method also involves a long
Flow accumulation 6.38 0.00049 0.02215 0.988 execution time with a heavy computing load. Therefore, the
Land use 4.19 0.00032 0.01795 0.986 thematic data layers were converted into ASCII format to
speed up the computing process. Computation of the weight
of the factors and artificial neural network modeling was
Some researchers used the sensitivity analysis to performed in MATLAB; the outputs were exported to GIS
improve hydrological model (Liu et al. 2003; Bahremand for map production and visual interpretation. Flood suscep-
and De Smedt 2008; Pappenberger et al. 2008; Fernandez tibility map was analyzed qualitatively using equal area
and Lutz 2010). Sensitivity analysis is a common tool for classification schemes.
finding important model factors, testing the model con- A prototype of MLP was developed and integrated with
ceptualization, and developing the model structure (Sieber GIS. These new methods apply different causative flood
and Uhlenbrook 2005). In this study, a sensitivity analysis factors to model the floods and present the results in a
was applied to define the relative importance of each of the spatial form. The results showed the models could simulate
input data with the exception of the rainfall factor as the peak river flows as well as base flows.
main reason of floods, on the river flow in the output. Input These results can be used as basic data to assist slope
factors including slope, elevation, soil, geology, flow management and landuse planning. The methods used in
accumulation, and land use were considered, in turn, in the the study can also be used for generalized planning and
sensitivity analysis. Table 4 shows the ANN models, with assessment purposes, although they may be less useful on a
one of the input factors eliminated in each case. As can be site-specific scale, where local geomorphologic and geo-
seen in the table, the R2 of the factors varies within the graphic heterogeneities may prevail. The study suggests the
range 0.9310.990. This range indicates that all input model can be used to predict floods in the study area with
causative factors influence the river flow. Table 4 indicated acceptable accuracy. It seems integration of this model
that among the different input factors, elevation has the with a real-time warning system will provide a great
most significant (R2 = 0.931) and geology (R2 = 0.990) advantage and flood damages can be reduced significantly.
has the least influence on river flow and flood.
Acknowledgments This article is greatly benefited from very
helpful reviews by two anonymous reviewers and editorial comments
by James W. LaMoreaux.
Discussion and conclusions

Over the last decade, ANN has been used in many geo-
hazard applications. Integration of GIS and neural network
techniques in the field of water resource has opened various
new approaches in hydrological modeling, improved our
ability to create more accurate flood models, and helped to
present the results in a spatial environment.
Floods are affected by several factors such as rainfall,
initial soil moisture, geology, land use, evaporation,
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