Neural Network Embedded Monte Carlo Approach for Water Quality Modeling under Input Information Uncertainty

This paper proposes a neural network embedded Monte Carlo (NNMC) approach to account for uncertainty in water quality modeling. The framework of the proposed method has three major parts: a numerical water quality model, a neural network technique, and Monte Carlo simulation. The numerical model is used to generate desirable output for training and testing sets, and the neural network is used as a universal functional mapping tool to approximate the input-output response of the numerical model. The Monte Carlo simulation then uses the neural network to generate numerical realizations based on a probabilistic distribution of parameters, thus obtaining a probabilistic distribution of the simulated state variables. By embedding a neural network into the conventional Monte Carlo simulation, the proposed approach significantly improves upon the conventional method in computational efficiency. The proposed approach has been applied to uncertainty and risk analyses of a phosphorus model for Triadelphia Reservoir in Maryland. The results of this research show that the NNMC approach has potential for efficient uncertainty analysis of water quality modeling.