Articles | Volume 19, issue 7
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-2657-2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-2657-2026
Methods for assessment of models
 | 
07 Apr 2026
Methods for assessment of models |  | 07 Apr 2026

Validation strategies for deep learning-based groundwater level time series prediction using exogenous meteorological input features

Fabienne Doll, Tanja Liesch, Maria Wetzel, Stefan Kunz, and Stefan Broda

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Cited articles

Ahmadi, A., Olyaei, M., Heydari, Z., Emami, M., Zeynolabedin, A., Ghomlaghi, A., Daccache, A., Fogg, G. E., and Sadegh, M.: Groundwater Level Modeling with Machine Learning: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis, Water, 14, 949, https://doi.org/10.3390/w14060949, 2022. a, b
Arlot, S. and Celisse, A.: A survey of cross-validation procedures for model selection, Statistics Surveys, 4, 40–79, https://doi.org/10.1214/09-SS054, 2010. a, b, c
Bergmeir, C. and Benítez, J. M.: Forecaster performance evaluation with cross-validation and variants, in: 2011 11th International Conference on Intelligent Systems Design and Applications, IEEE, 849–854, https://doi.org/10.1109/ISDA.2011.6121763, 2011. a, b, c, d
Bergmeir, C. and Benítez, J. M.: On the use of cross-validation for time series predictor evaluation, Information Sciences, 191, 192–213, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ins.2011.12.028, 2012. a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j
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Short summary
With the growing use of machine learning for groundwater level (GWL) prediction, proper performance estimation is crucial. This study compares three validation strategies—blocked cross-validation (bl-CV), repeated out-of-sample (repOOS), and out-of-sample (OOS)—for 1D-CNN and LSTM models using meteorological inputs. Results show that bl-CV offers the most reliable performance estimates, while OOS is the most uncertain, highlighting the need for careful method selection.
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