Improving Water Salinity Forecasting in Bang Pakong River with Attention Mechanism

Abstract

Seawater intrusion in the Bang Pakong River estuary poses a significant threat to freshwater resources used for agriculture, municipal consumption, and industrial applications. Accurate prediction of salinity fluctuations is crucial for effective water management strategies. This study proposes an enhanced univariate salinity prediction method utilizing a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) model augmented with an Attention Mechanism. The Attention Mechanism empowers the LSTM to selectively focus on crucial information within extended historical salinity data sequences. The optimal input sequence length for the model is determined through a training process, aiming for the most accurate predictions. Here, the model forecasts salinity values 24 hours ahead and is evaluated against actual measurements. Performance metrics demonstrate that the Attention-LSTM model achieves the lowest error (MAE: 0.007834, MSE: 0.000094, RMSE: 0.009697, MAPE: 0.048736) and the highest accuracy (R²: 0.782927) at an input sequence length of 504 hours. These findings highlight the potential of the Attention-LSTM model for improved salinity prediction in the Bang Pakong River estuary, aiding water resource management strategies.