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Open Access Research Article Issue
Incorporation of SWAT & WEAP models for analysis of water demand deficits in the Kala Oya River Basin in Sri Lanka: perspective for climate and land change
AIMS Geosciences 2025, 11(1): 155-200
Published: 15 March 2025
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Kala Oya is one of the drier river basins in Sri Lanka that is affected by droughts for certain time periods. Water shortages are visible in crop yields and public water supply due to climate change. Consequently, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was used to develop hydrological models, and Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) software was used to analyze the water allocation for the basin. The software's evaluation and assessing capability of allocation of water, transmission, and diversion links for demands are some reasons to use WEAP as a separate water allocation model. The future land use and climate aspect (2040) has also been included in these models to enable the generation of "scenarios" that can be used to test the demand deficits for irrigation and public water supply. Three climatic conditions such as optimistic, pessimistic, and average for 2040 were considered for modeling. Our major findings include: 1. The pessimistic climate change scenario exhibits the highest rise in drought metrics while the optimistic represents the lowest. Under current land use conditions, annual Long-Term Average (LTA) public water supply deficits are 1.0 million cubic meters (MCM) (3.2%), and for future land use, in a pessimistic climate change scenario, annual LTA deficits are 4.7 MCM (4.4%). 2. For medium/major irrigated agriculture, annual LTA deficits for current conditions are 42.8 MCM (9.0%), and for future land use, pessimistic climate change scenarios are 56.1 MCM (12.7%). For minor irrigation, annual LTA deficits for current conditions are 20.8 MCM (17.9%) and future pessimistic climate change scenarios are 24.2 MCM (20.2%). 3. This study concludes that the public water supply demand deficits are considerably greater in the middle and lower catchments of Kala Oya basin for future land use (with basin developments) model simulations. This may create water scarcity and social stress for people who require immediate mitigation measures. 4. Overall, it was revealed that the agriculture-oriented drought losses (major/medium irrigation) are significant (around 66–67% of total demand deficits) in the Kala Oya basin, and they may create adverse impacts on the country's economy due to crop yield losses.

Open Access Review Issue
Machine learning applications in flood forecasting and predictions, challenges, and way-out in the perspective of changing environment
AIMS Environmental Science 2025, 12(1): 72-105
Published: 15 February 2025
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Floods have been identified as one of the world's most common and widely distributed natural disasters over the last few decades. Floods' negative impacts could be significantly reduced if accurately predicted or forecasted in advance. Apart from large-scale spatiotemporal data and greater attention to data from the Internet of Things, the worldwide volume of digital data is increasing. Artificial intelligence plays a vital role in analyzing and developing the corresponding flood mitigation plan, flood prediction, or forecast. Machine learning (ML)-based models have recently received much attention due to their self-learning capabilities from data without incorporating any complex physical processes. This study provides a comprehensive review of ML approaches used in flood prediction, forecasting, and classification tasks, serving as a guide for future challenges. The importance and challenges of applying these techniques to flood prediction are discussed. Finally, recommendations and future directions of ML models in flood analysis are presented.

Open Access Article Issue
Predicting Short-Term Wind Power Generation at Musalpetti Wind Farm: Model Development and Analysis
Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences 2025, 143(2): 2287-2305
Published: 30 May 2025
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In this study, a machine learning-based predictive model was developed for the Musa petti Wind Farm in Sri Lanka to address the need for localized forecasting solutions. Using data on wind speed, air temperature, nacelle position, and actual power, lagged features were generated to capture temporal dependencies. Among 24 evaluated models, the ensemble bagging approach achieved the best performance, with R2 values of 0.89 at 0 min and 0.75 at 60 min. Shapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) analysis revealed that while wind speed is the primary driver for short-term predictions, air temperature and nacelle position become more influential at longer forecasting horizons. These findings underscore the reliability of short-term predictions and the potential benefits of integrating hybrid AI and probabilistic models for extended forecasts. Our work contributes a robust and explainable framework to support Sri Lanka’s renewable energy transition, and future research will focus on real-time deployment and uncertainty quantification.

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