March 20, 2025: AB Branch Webinar: Teaching Old Dogs New Machine Learning Tricks
CWRA Alberta Branch is hosting an exciting webinar March 20th at Noon!
Date and Time:
March 20th, 2025, 12pm – 1pm MST
Presentation Topic:
Alberta River Forecast Center Seasonal Water Supply Model Update:
Teaching Old Dogs New Machine Learning Tricks
Presenter:
Nathalie Brunet, M.Sc., P.Eng. River Forecast Engineer, Alberta Environment and Protected Areas
Nathalie is a River Forecast Engineer at the Alberta River Forecast Centre in Edmonton, AB, with a special interest in FEWS development and emergency management. Previously she worked as a hydrologist with the Saskatchewan Water Security Agency and completed a M.Sc. at the University of Saskatchewan assessing wetland drainage and water quality. She is happiest exploring waterways by canoe.
Abstract:
The Alberta River Forecast Centre (RFC) is updating its statistics-based models used to calculate seasonal natural flow volume forecasts (March to September). The forecasts are produced monthly from February to August at twenty locations.
The current models use Principal Component Regression (PCR) and the use of new State-Space models is also being explored for the update. State-Space models are a hybrid of Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and Convolutional Neural Networks. The model update is a timely endeavor given the focus on drought conditions recently observed across Alberta and an increase in requests for water availability forecast information.
We look forward to operationalizing these water supply models and moving forward with a functional, reliable, easy to interpret, and easy to update tool. The update also presents an opportunity for the River Forecast Centre to improve the ways we communicate results, including the associated uncertainty, with stakeholders. The seasonal Water Supply forecast is available at https://rivers.alberta.ca
Google Meet Information
Meeting ID: meet.google.com/exo-yobo-mrv
Phone Numbers
(CA)+1 587-978-9413 PIN: 644 471 949#
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