Zhou et al. (2025) Groundwater Level Estimation Using Improved Transformer Model: A Case Study of the Yellow River Basin

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Water
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-08-04
• Authors: Tianming Zhou, Fu Chun, Yezhong Liu
• DOI: 10.3390/w17152318

Research Groups

Not specified

Short Summary

This study compares an enhanced Transformer deep learning model with an LSTM model to estimate long-term groundwater levels in the Yellow River Basin, demonstrating that the Transformer model significantly improves estimation accuracy.

Objective

• To estimate groundwater levels for the period 2003–2017 in the Yellow River Basin and evaluate whether an enhanced Transformer model, incorporating spatial and temporal features, outperforms the LSTM model.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Yellow River Basin (approximately 1100 monitoring wells).
• Temporal Scale: Estimation period 2003–2017; data collection period 2018–2023 (monthly averages).

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Enhanced Transformer (capturing historical temporal and surrounding spatial data), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM).
• Data sources: Monitoring well groundwater level data and remote sensing information.

Main Results

• The enhanced Transformer model outperformed the LSTM model at the basin-averaged scale:
  • $R^2$ increased by approximately 17.5%.
  • Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) decreased by approximately 12.4%.
  • Mean Absolute Error (MAE) decreased by approximately 10.9%.
  • The proportion of poorly predicted samples decreased by an average of approximately 12.1%.

Contributions

• Improves the quantitative analysis capability of long-term groundwater level variations in the Yellow River Basin.
• Provides a robust deep learning framework for water resource development planning in densely populated regions, with potential applicability to other river basins.

Funding

Not specified

Citation

@article{Zhou2025Groundwater,
  author = {Zhou, Tianming and Chun, Fu and Liu, Yezhong and Xiang, Libin},
  title = {Groundwater Level Estimation Using Improved Transformer Model: A Case Study of the Yellow River Basin},
  journal = {Water},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.3390/w17152318},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.3390/w17152318}
}