Abstract

This paper describes an application of neural networks for forecasting the flow rate upper district of dams for hydropower plants. The forecasting of recession characteristics of the river flow after rainfalls is important with respect to system operation and dam management. We present a method for improving the precision of forecasting flow rate upper district of dams by utilizing steady-state estimation and recession time constant of the river flow. A case study was carried out on the upper district of the Yahagi River in Central Japan. It is found from our investigations that the forecasting accuracy is improved to 18.6% from 25.8% with a forecasted error of the total amount of river flow by using steady-state estimation.