Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Data mining for water resource management part 2 - methods and approaches to solving contemporary problems

October 14, 2010

This is the second of two papers that describe how data mining can aid natural-resource managers with the difficult problem of controlling the interactions between hydrologic and man-made systems. Data mining is a new science that assists scientists in converting large databases into knowledge, and is uniquely able to leverage the large amounts of real-time, multivariate data now being collected for hydrologic systems. Part 1 gives a high-level overview of data mining, and describes several applications that have addressed major water resource issues in South Carolina. This Part 2 paper describes how various data mining methods are integrated to produce predictive models for controlling surface- and groundwater hydraulics and quality. The methods include: - signal processing to remove noise and decompose complex signals into simpler components; - time series clustering that optimally groups hundreds of signals into "classes" that behave similarly for data reduction and (or) divide-and-conquer problem solving; - classification which optimally matches new data to behavioral classes; - artificial neural networks which optimally fit multivariate data to create predictive models; - model response surface visualization that greatly aids in understanding data and physical processes; and, - decision support systems that integrate data, models, and graphics into a single package that is easy to use.

Publication Year 2010
Title Data mining for water resource management part 2 - methods and approaches to solving contemporary problems
Authors Edwin A. Roehl, Paul Conrads
Publication Type Conference Paper
Publication Subtype Conference Paper
Index ID 70158962
Record Source USGS Publications Warehouse
USGS Organization South Atlantic Water Science Center