Application of Artificial Neural Network for Predicting Iron Concentration in the Location of Al-Wahda Water Treatment Plant in Baghdad City

Abstract

Iron is one of the abundant elements on earth that is an essential element for humans and may be a troublesome element in water supplies.  In this research an AAN model was developed to predict iron concentrations in the location of Al- Wahda water treatment plant in Baghdad city by water quality assessment of iron concentrations at seven WTPs up stream Tigris River. SPSS software was used to build the ANN model. The input data were iron concentrations in the raw water for the period 2004-2011. The results indicated the best model predicted Iron concentrations at Al-Wahda WTP with a coefficient of determination 0.9142. The model used one hidden layer with two nodes and the testing error was 0.834. The ANN model could be used to predict future iron concentrations as the results from the verification of the ANN model for years 2012 and 2013 indicated good accuracy with a coefficient of determination R² = 0.8965.