The contribution of remote sensing and input feature selection for groundwater level prediction using LSTM neural networks in the Oum Er-Rbia Basin, Morocco

The planning and management of groundwater in the absence of in situ climate data is a delicate task, particularly in arid regions where this resource is crucial for drinking water supplies and irrigation. Here the motivation is to evaluate the role of remote sensing data and Input feature selection method in the Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) neural network for predicting groundwater levels of five wells located in different hydrogeological contexts across the Oum Er-Rbia Basin (OER) in Morocco: irrigated plain, floodplain and low plateau area. As input descriptive variable, four remote sensing variables were used: the Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals (IMERGE) Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) precipitation, Moderate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), MODIS land surface temperature (LST), and MODIS evapotranspiration. Three LSTM models were developed, rigorously analyzed and compared. The LSTM-XGB-GS model, was optimized using the GridsearchCV method, and uses a single remote sensing variable identified by the input feature selection method XGBoost. Another optimized LSTM model was also constructed, but uses the four remote sensing variables as input (LSTM-GS). Additionally, a standalone LSTM model was established and also incorporating the four variables as inputs. Scatter plots, violin plots, Taylor diagram and three evaluation indices were used to verify the performance of the three models. The overall result showed that the LSTM-XGB-GS model was the most successful, consistently outperforming both the LSTM-GS model and the standalone LSTM model. Its remarkable accuracy is reflected in high R2 values (0.95 to 0.99 during training, 0.72 to 0.99 during testing) and the lowest RMSE values (0.03 to 0.68 m during training, 0.02 to 0.58 m during testing) and MAE values (0.02 to 0.66 m during training, 0.02 to 0.58 m during testing). The LSTM-XGB-GS model reveals how hydrodynamics, climate, and land-use influence groundwater predictions, emphasizing correlations like irrigated land-temperature link and floodplain-NDVI-evapotranspiration interaction for improved predictions. Finally, this study demonstrates the great support that remote sensing data can provide for groundwater prediction using ANN models in conditions where in situ data are lacking.