Detecting effective parameters in flood occurrence is one of the most important issues that has drawn more attention in recent years. Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographical Information System (GIS) are two efficient ways to spatially predict Flood Risk Mapping (FRM). In this study, a web-based platform called the Google Earth Engine (GEE) (Google Company, Mountain View, CA, USA) was used to obtain flood risk indices for the Galikesh River basin, Northern Iran. With the aid of Landsat 8 satellite imagery and the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) Digital Elevation Model (DEM), 11 risk indices (Elevation (El), Slope (Sl), Slope Aspect (SA), Land Use (LU), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI), Topographic Wetness Index (TWI), River Distance (RD), Waterway and River Density (WRD), Soil Texture (ST]), and Maximum One-Day Precipitation (M1DP)) were provided. In the next step, all of these indices were imported into ArcMap 10.8 (Esri, West Redlands, CA, USA) software for index normalization and to better visualize the graphical output. Afterward, an intelligent learning machine (Random Forest (RF)), which is a robust data mining technique, was used to compute the importance degree of each index and to obtain the flood hazard map. According to the results, the indices of WRD, RD, M1DP, and El accounted for about 68.27 percent of the total flood risk. Among these indices, the WRD index containing about 23.8 percent of the total risk has the greatest impact on floods. According to FRM mapping, about 21 and 18 percent of the total areas stood at the higher and highest risk areas, respectively.

Pier scour phenomena in the presence of debris accumulation have attracted the attention of engineers to present a precise prediction of the local scour depth. Most experimental studies of pier scour depth with debris accumulation have been performed to find an accurate formula to predict the local scour depth. However, an empirical equation with appropriate capacity of validation is not available to evaluate the local scour depth. In this way, gene-expression programming (GEP), evolutionary polynomial regression (EPR), and model tree (MT) based formulations are used to develop to predict the scour depth around bridge piers with debris effects. Laboratory data sets utilized to perform models are collected from different literature. Effective parameters on the local scour depth include geometric characterizations of bridge piers and debris, physical properties of bed sediment, and approaching flow characteristics. The efficiency of the training stages for the GEP, MT, and EPR models are investigated. Performances of the testing results for these models are compared with the traditional approaches based on regression methods. The uncertainty prediction of the MT was quantified and compared with those of existing models. Also, sensitivity analysis was performed to assign effective parameters on the scour depth prediction.

In this paper, the neuro-fuzzy based group method of data handling (NF-GMDH) as an adaptive learning network was used to predict the scour process at pile groups due to waves. The NF-GMDH network was developed using the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm and gravitational search algorithm (GSA). Effective parameters on the scour depth include sediment size, geometric property, pile spacing, arrangement of pile group, and wave characteristics upstream of group piles. Seven dimensionless parameters were obtained to define a functional relationship between input and output variables. Published data were compiled from the literature for the scour depth modeling due to waves. The efficiency of training stages for both NF-GMDH-PSO and NF-GMDH-GSA models were investigated. The results indicated that NF-GMDH models could provide more accurate predictions than those obtained using model tree and traditional equations.